m 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 


COMMODORE  BYRON  MCCANDLESS 


L 


YOUNG  PEOPLE'S  HISTORY 
OF  THE  PILGRIMS 


THE  MAYFLOWER 


YOUNG  PEOPLE'S  HISTORY 
OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

BY 

WILLIAM  ELLIOT  GRIFFIS 

AUTHOR  OF  "mighty  ENGLAND!  THE  STORY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  PEOPLE"; 
fXHE  PILGRIMS  INTHEIRTHREE  HOMES*';  "tHE  ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN 

colonization";  "brave  little  Holland,"  etc. 
fVith  Illustrations 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

The  Riverside  Press  Cambridge 

1920 


COPYRIGHT,   1920,  BY  WILLIAM  ELLIOT  GRIFFIS 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


F 


^ 


IN  REVERENT  MEMORY  AND  APPRECIATION 

OF  MY  ENGLISH  ANCESTORS 

BOTH  FREE  AND  STATE  CHURCHMEN 

AND  WITH  ESPECIAL  HONOR 

TO  THOSE  WHO  APPLIED  DEMOCRACY  TO  RELIGION 

AFTER  THE  GREAT  EXAMPLE  OF  THE 

SYRIAN  LOVER  OF  THE  COMMON  PEOPLE 


5 


PREFACE 

One  of  many  correspondents  complains  that 
"  the  trouble  with  Americans  seems  to  be  that 
they  consider  that  the  Pilgrims  are  a  unique 
creation  of  their  own  and  that  they  had  'cor- 
nered' the  market  of  the  world  on  them  — •  like 
the  American  Indians.  It  is  somewhat  hard  for 
them  to  realize  that  these  Puritans  were  bona- 
fide,  every-day  Englishmen." 

Too  true! 

I  have  tried  to  avoid  this  Yankee  tendency, 
to  sketch  rather  the  historical  backgrounds,  to 
remember  the  meanings  of  words  as  used  in 
former  days,  and,  in  picturing  the  past,  to  un- 
shackle our  minds  from  the  present. 

To  learn  about  the  Pilgrims  I  made  seven 
journeys  over  the  ground  and  in  the  archives 
of  England,  Holland,  and  America,  and,  in  the 
years  from  1886  to  1919,  have  had  controversy, 
correspondence,  or  conversation  with  the  Dex- 
ters,  father  and  son,  John  Fiske,  Oliver  Wen- 
dell Holmes,  W.  E.  Davis,  Edward  A.  Freeman, 
Herbert  Adams,  John  Brown  of  Bedford,  Azel 
Ames,  Thomas  W.  Higginson,  R.  S.  Storrs,  Ezra 
[  vii] 


PREFACE 

Hoyt  Byington,  Daniel  Van  Pelt,  George  H. 
Bough  ton,  Edwin  D.  Mead,  Henry  C.  Murphy, 
Edwin  Arber,  Henry  Codman  Potter,  Willis- 
ton  Walker,  Charles  W.  Eliot,  Edward  J.  Car- 
penter, Alexander  MacKennal,  Champlin  Bur- 
rage,  J.  Rendall  Harris,  and  various  librarians 
and  archivists;  to  all  of  whom  my  warm  thanks 
are  due. 

Yet,  while  confessing  a  large  debt  to  many 
friends  and  helpers,  and  still  more  to  relics, 
records,  and  documents,  I  account  the  knowl- 
edge and  insight  gained  while  living  four 
years  under  feudal  and  Imperial  Japan  of  fifty 
years  ago,  to  be  of  even  more  value  for  under- 
standing the  history  of  European  countries,  at 
a  time  when  they  were  just  emerging  from 
medicevalism.  For  a  true  interpretation  of  the 
whole  Pilgrim  story,  I  should  not  be  willing  to 
exchange  erudition  for  living  experience  under 
an  ancient  civilization;  believing,  as  I  do,  that 
human  nature  and  its  response  to  conditions 
are  the  same  everywhere  and  in  all  times,  and 
that  race  prejudice  is  a  relic  of  barbarism,  if  not 
of  cave  life. 

In  writing  for,  but  not  down  to,  young  people, 

I  have  dwelt  rather  upon  what  was  visible  to, 

or  interested,  the  Pilgrim  boys  and  girls.  Yet 

I  have  endeavored,  also,  to  make  clear  the 

[  viii  ] 


PREFACE 

formative  principles  and  Impelling  motives,  as 
well  as  conditions  and  events;  and  this  without 
any  special  interest  in  genealogy. 

Though  claiming  to  have  no  "corner"  on  the 
story  of  the  Pilgrims,  it  is  well  for  us  Americans 
to  know  how  much  both  they  and  we  owe  to 
the  federal  republic  whose  striped  flag  —  the 
prototype  of  our  own  —  was  that  of  a  true  na- 
tion, and  to  realize  how  nobly  the  Separatists 
responded  to  their  opportunities,  in  both  Hol- 
land and  America.  No  less  than  Jerusalem, 
Athens,  and  Rome  do  Scrooby,  Leyden,  and 
Plymouth  stand  in  history  for  great  and  im- 
perishable ideas.  The  Pilgrim  story  shows  that 
when  democracy  is  conditioned  by  high  reli- 
gious motives,  it  is  at  its  best.  The  Pilgrims  be- 
lieved, as  do  many  of  us  to-day,  that,  for  the 
building  and  regulating  of  a  church,  we  may 
rely  solely  upon  the  Gospel,  and  that  all  true 
democracy  is  but  the  teaching  of  Jesus  —  as 
illuminated  by  his  life  —  put  into  practice. 

I  have  given  my  view  of  English  history  in 
another  book:  Mighty  England:  The  Story  of 
the  English  People.  Nor,  because  I  tell,  more 
than  most  authors,  of  the  mighty  reinforce- 
ment in  a  republic  of  a  body  of  loyal  English- 
men, cast  out  of  the  mother  country  in  Tudor 
and  Stuart  times,  would  I  hinder  for  a  moment 
[ix] 


PREFACE 

the  deeper  unity  and  closer  cooperation,  for  the 
world's  good,  of  all  those  English-speaking  peo- 
ple, who,  in  1920,  join  in  celebrating  the  ter- 
centenary of  the  sailing  of  the  Mayflower. 

W.  E.  G. 

Ithaca,  N.Y. 
January,  1920 


CONTENTS 

I.  How  THE  World  Looked  Long  Ago  i 

IL  A  Mirror  of  English  History  17 

HL  England's  Most  Wonderful  Century  27 

IV.  Fun  and  Play  in  the  Old  Home  38 

V.  A  Girl's  Life  in  Merrie  England  50 

VL  Puritan,    Independent,    Separatist, 

and  Pilgrim  63 

VIL  Middelburg:    The    Lone     Star   of 

Freedom  76 

VIIL  Martyrs  for  a  Free  Church  88 

IX.  Brewster:  The  Boy  Traveler  ioi 

X.  Bradford:   Boy  Hero   and   Typical 

Pilgrim  115 

XL  Scrooby:  A  Battle-Ground  of  Prin- 
ciples 124 

XII.  Tudor  England  casts  out  her  Chil- 
dren 136 

XIIL  Under  the  Flag  of  Seven  Stripes       148 

XIV.  Leyden  and  American  History  161 

XV.  John  Robinson:  Prophet  and  Leader  174 

[xi] 


CONTENTS 

XVI.  The  Decision  to  Emigrate  and  Why     187 

XVII.  The  Speedwell:  Old  England  Again  199 

XVIII.  The  Voyage  of  the  Mayflower  211 

XIX.  The  Compact  and  the  Passenger  List  222 

XX.  The  Glorious  Wash  237 

XXI.  The  New  World:  America  247 

XXII.  Captain    Miles    Standish    and    his 

Little  Army  261 

XXIII.  The   First  Winter  and  the  Great 

Sickness  274 

XXIV.  The  Pilgrim  Republic  284 

XXV.  Prosperity  and  Expansion  301 

XXVI.  Cosmopolitan  Elements  in  the  Pil- 
grim Company  310 

XXVII.  The  Pilgrim  Inheritance  322 

Chronological  Framework  of  the 
Story  of  a  Free  Church  in  a  Free 
State  333 

Index  343 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

The  Mayflower  Frontispiece 

The  Village  of  Scrooby  from  the  Manor 
Grounds  46 

Brewster's  Room  in  the  Old  Manor  House, 
Scrooby  102 

The  Old  Monk's  Mill,  Scrooby  126 

Two  OF  the  Cells  in  the  Town  Hall  of  Bos- 
ton, England,  where  some  of  the  Pilgrims 
were  Incarcerated  130 

View  of  Delfshaven  from  the  River  in  the 
Seventeenth  Century  200 

From  an  old  Dutch  print 

The  Spot  in  Southampton  Water  where  the 
Mayflower  and  the  Speedwell  are  sup- 
posed TO  HAVE  TAKEN  ON  PASSENGERS  2O4 

From  an  engraving 

The  Pilgrim  Exiles  282 

From  a  painting  by  George  H.  Boughton,  by  permission 
of  Messrs.  M.  Knoedler  &  Co.,  New  York 


YOUNG   PEOPLE^S   HISTORY 
OF   THE   PILGRIMS 

• 

CHAPTER  I 
HOW  THE  WORLD  LOOKED  LONG  AGO 

When  in  191 8  two  million  of  our  American 
boys  crossed  the  ocean,  many  of  them  saw  old 
England,  most  of  these  for  the  first  time.  They 
were  greatly  surprised.  They  missed  much  that 
was  in  daily  use  at  home.  The  people  spoke 
the  same  language,  but  the  general  aspect  was 
quite  different.  Some  things  the  Americans 
wanted  the  English  did  not  have.  No  ice-water, 
no  ice-cream,  no  peanuts,  no  soda-water  foun- 
tains, no  pie,  no  cobs  of  corn,  no  fried  chicken, 
no  waffles !  Tea,  not  coif ee,  even  for  breakfast, 
was  the  common  drink,  and  almost  everybody, 
from  lord  and  lady  to  laborer  and  shopgirl, 
took  a  cup  in  the  afternoon.  The  people  on  the 
pavements  and  the  horses  in  the  streets  turned 
to  the  left,  instead  of  to  the  right.  Only  a  few 
streets  ran  straight,  or  kept  the  same  name  all 
the  way  along.  The  buildings  were  low  and  no 
skyscrapers  were  seen.  There  were  few  street- 
car lines  or  subways. 

[  I  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

On  the  railroads  the  little  four-wheeled 
freight  cars  and  the  passenger  coaches  seemed 
more  like  toys  or  big  boxes  on  wheels.  The 
steam  locomotives  were  astonishingly  small, 
without  cabs  for  the  engineers,  and  the  whole 
system,  including  arrangements  for  baggage, 
which  they  called  "luggage,"  appeared  to  be 
very  old-fashioned.  Shops  and  stores,  markets 
and  fairs,  roads  and  coins  were  different.  Even 
the  holy  places  had  queer  names,  for  Church 
and  State  were  united. 

Yet  our  men  liked  sight-seeing  and  studied 
their  relations.  One  American  infantryman,  of 
whom  General  Pershing  tells,  was  especially 
bent  on  seeing  "The  Church  of  England." 
Many  things  furnished  fun  for  our  boys,  even 
while  they  met  with  warm  hearts  and  open 
hands.  England  is  an  old,  not  a  new  country 
like  ours,  and  in  some  things  her  people  excel 
us.  They  cling  to  many  customs  which  our 
fathers  gave  up  long  ago,  and  love  them  be- 
cause they  are  old. 

While  the  language  was  much  the  same,  the 
accent  and  pronunciation,  especially  of  the 
plainer  people  and  country  folk,  were  different, 
and  often  puzzled  our  boys,  or  made  them 
laugh.  To  hear  of  a  "  goods  "  instead  of  a  freight 
train,  a  "jug"  instead  of  a  pitcher,  and  of 

[2] 


HOW  THE  WORLD  LOOKED 

"butcher's  meat"  and  of  "corn"  —  meaning 
any  kind  of  grain  except  on  the  cob  —  seemed 
strange.  The  cockneys  and  railway  porters  in 
London  pronounce  ai  as  if  it  were  long  i.  They 
talk  of  the  "mine"  line  for  "main"  line,  and 
"lidy"  for  "lady."  When  a  military  secretary 
asked  a  Yankee  soldier,  who  wished  to  visit  his 
English  relatives,  whether  he  wished  to  "go  to 
die,"  it  required  a  third  party  to  explain  the 
solecism,  translate  cockney  into  American,  and 
prove  that  the  question  related  to  time  and  not 
to  eternity.  "To  die"  meant  "to-day,"  and 
had  no  reference  to  the  cemetery. 

In  other  words,  the  English  language  and 
Ideas,  methods,  and  ways  of  looking  and  doing 
things  are  not  the  same  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic,  though  ever  increasingly  more  alike. 
This  is  not  merely  because  we  Americans  are 
made  up  of  many  nations.  Even  the  Canadians 
and  Australians  found  things  and  thoughts 
different  from  those  in  their  own  homes,  though 
not  so  much  as  did  "the  Yanks."  People 
whose  fathers  had  grown  up  in  a  wild  country, 
with  new  landscapes,  animals,  and  articles  of 
food,  where  the  climate  and  weather  were  pe- 
culiar, and  who  passed  through  many  expe- 
riences unknown  to  their  fathers,  must  talk  and 
think  differently  from  those  left  behind  in  the 

[3] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

old  country.  Moreover,  people  living  on  an 
island,  not  much  more  than  one  twentieth  part 
as  large  as  the  United  States,  find  it  a  little 
hard  wholly  to  understand  us  or  our  ge- 
ography; while  our  boys  must  learn  a  good 
deal  to  know  why  "the  Yanks"  and  "the 
Tommies,"  though  good  allies  and  comrades, 
are  not  wholly  alike.  Even  American  jokes 
come  by  slow  freight  into  the  minds  of  for- 
eigners, while  much  of  their  fun  is  lost  on  us. 

Still  more,  those  soldier  lads  (if  they  re- 
mained long  enough  in  the  country  to  read 
history,  to  learn  English  ways,  and  to  think  and 
to  compare)  wondered  at  finding  that  some 
things  connected  with  the  government  were 
mixed  with  religion  in  a  very  repulsive  way. 
In  death  their  comrades  might  not  be  allowed 
burial  in  what  is  called  "consecrated"  ground 
—  for  sectarianism,  when  backed  by  corpo- 
rations, either  religious  or  political,  carries  its 
edicts  even  into  the  grave.  Their  English 
friends,  on  receiving  a  bill  of  burial  charges, 
might  find  printed  on  the  top  the  headline, 
"  unconsecrated  ground." 

Yet  these  old  customs  "established  by  law" 
offended  millions  of  Englishmen,  not  to  say 
Americans.  The  New  Yorker  or  Texan  found 
that,  if  he  wanted  to  marry  an  English  girl, 

[4] 


HOW  THE  WORLD  LOOKED 

it  must  be  done  at  a  certain  hour  of  the  day 
and  before  some  agent  of  the  "church  estab- 
lished by  law."  In  a  word,  here  were  State  and 
Church  in  union.  He  found  in  the  Upper  House 
of  Parliament  church  rulers  also,  sitting  as 
members,  to  make  the  laws.  He  learned  that 
one  sort  of  Christians  had  special  advantages 
over  the  others,  and  the  people  in  general 
actually  had  to  pay  taxes  to  support  sectarian 
schools. 

So  the  thinking  American  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  those  laws,  customs,  and  things 
most  truly  American  had  come  to  us,  not  from 
England,  but  from  a  republic,  and  from  other 
lands  than  dear  old  England.  He  also  found 
that  very  few  English  people  understood  our 
form  of  federal  government  —  a  sort  which 
they  had  never  tried;  while  others  of  our  po- 
litical features  they  envied^  as  indeed  we  ad- 
mired some  of  theirs.  In  a  word,  mutual  benefit 
followed  on  this  contact  of  ideas. 

Yet  even  in  England,  people  and  things  are 
now  almost  as  different  from  those  of,  say, 
1500  A.D.,  as  we  and  our  ways  are  from  them 
and  theirs.  Certainwords  and  expressions,  which 
not  over-educated  Englishmen  call  "American- 
isms"—  of  which  Shakespeare's  plays  are  full 
—  are  only  what  our  ancestors  brought  with 

Is] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

them  oversea.  Many  a  soldier  from  Kentucky, 
or  New  Jersey,  was  able  to  prove  this,  by  quot- 
ing from  the  bard  of  Avon,  or  from  the  Bible. 

Whatever  is  alive  grows,  and  growth  means 
change.  Even  the  English  landscape  is  not  the 
same.  The  old  forests  are  gone.  Hundreds  of 
square  miles  of  drained  marshes  have  become 
fertile  fields.  Whole  species  of  birds  and  beasts 
once  common  are  extinct,  while  new  plants 
abound.  The  lepers,  the  horrible  plagues,  and 
the  epidemics  that  swept  off  tens  of  thousands 
at  a  time  occur  no  more.  The  modern  English- 
man is  clean  and  loves  soap  and  water,  and 
soap-makers  sit  in  Parliament;  but  in  1600  the 
old  Roman  baths  were  still  forgotten  under  the 
rubbish  of  centuries,  and  personal  cleanliness 
was  not  the  shining  virtue  of  England.  To 
show  the  change  in  industry,  there  are  millions 
of  tall  chimneys,  where  five  centuries  ago  none 
was  visible. 

At  the  date  of  America's  discovery,  no  Eng- 
lish folk  could  understand  the  language  spoken 
to-day.  Even  northern  and  southern  men  had 
hard  work  in  conversation,  for  there  were 
many  dialects.  Nor  could  a  Welshman,  or  a 
Highlander,  know  what  an  Englishman  was 
saying.  Scotland  and  Wales  were  as  foreign 
countries,  as  indeed  many  counties  were  to 
[6] 


HOW  THE  WORLD  LOOKED 

each  other.  Except  the  castles,  monasteries, 
cathedrals,  church  buildings,  and  tithe-barns, 
there  were  very  few  imposing  edifices,  or  very- 
fine  or  even  comfortable  homes.  Nine  tenths 
of  the  dwellings  were  but  one-story  thatched 
cottages.  In  the  two-storied  wooden  buildings, 
there  was  one  room  up  and  one  room  down- 
stairs, the  upper  floor  being  reached  by  a  rude 
ladder  or  an  outside  stairway.  Beds,  in  the 
country,  were  of  rushes.  Ninety-nine  heads  out 
of  every  hundred  were  laid,  for  their  night 
sleep,  on  logs  of  wood  for  pillow  or  bolster.  All 
lights  and  fires  had  to  be  out  by  nine  o'clock. 
There  were  no  carpets  or  matting,  but  only 
rushes,  even  on  palace  floors.  Only  a  few  people 
of  the  higher  ranks  knew  by  experience  what 
linen,  or  underclothing,  or  bed-tick  mattress, 
or  pillows  were.  Such  things  as  water  pipes 
or  bathtubs  in  a  dwelling-house,  or  the  regular 
cleaning,  paving,  or  lighting  of  streets  at  night, 
were  known  only  in  a  few  places.  Bricks  had 
not  been  made  since  Roman  times,  but  stone 
for  the  castles  and  cathedrals,  wood  and  ce- 
ment, or  lath  and  clay,  for  the  dwellings  were 
the  rule.  There  were  no  post-offices  or  postage 
.stamps,  no  splendid  public  roads  as  to-day, 
and  only  a  few  great  thoroughfares  leading  to 
the  four  points  of  the  compass;  that  is,  to 

[7] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

Scotland,  France,  Ireland,  and  the  Nether- 
lands. 

Of  the  population,  thin  and  scattered,  the 
majority  lived  in  the  country.  London  had 
only  a  hundred  thousand  inhabitants,  and  in 
very  few  towns  or  cities  were  there  over  live 
thousand  souls.  Banks  or  factories  were  un- 
known and  few  were  the  shops  or  stores.  Me- 
chanics worked  at  home,  and  people  sold  their 
goods  in  stalls  in  the  towns;  but  especially  at 
county  fairs,  held  regularly,  and  along  with  the 
pigs,  cattle,  and  country  produce. 

In  religion  no  one  could  worship,  assemble 
in  companies  for  prayer  or  song  In  the  English 
language,  or  have  a  church  of  any  kind,  except 
according  to  the  one  particular  form  —  the 
church  services  being  almost  wholly  In  Latin. 
There  were  very  few  books  and  no  libraries; 
for,  as  a  rule,  only  the  monks  or  priests  could 
read.  As  for  the  knights,  they  scorned  learning 
and  were  even  proud  to  be  Illiterate. 

Indeed,  the  world  Into  which  an  English  boy 
or  girl  was  born,  even  as  late  as  the  Common- 
wealth, was  a  very  different  one  from  that  of 
which  either  an  English  or  an  American  child 
of  to-day  learns  to  know.  As  our  young  people 
pass,  step  by  step,  from  the  cradle,  the  nursery, 
the  school,  the  college,  out  Into  a  trade  or  busi- 
[8] 


HOW  THE  WORLD  LOOKED 

ness,  and  the  more  they  learn  of  history,  the 
more  easily  can  they  understand  that  English 
life  in  the  time  of  the  Tudors  was  like  living  in 
another  world. 

The  uneducated,  or  those  who  in  our  country 
get  their  notions  only  from  novels,  pageants, 
the  theater,  and  the  "movies,"  know  little  of 
the  reality;  for  these  methods  of  amusement, 
as  a  rule,  dwell  upon  whatever  is  pretty,  ro- 
mantic, or  exciting,  but  not  upon  every-day 
life.  It  is  usually  only  the  dramatic  side  of  his- 
tory that  attracts  attention.  Apart  from  other 
reasons,  this  means  more  money  at  the  gate 
and  ticket  office. 

In  this  book  some  other  phases  of  English 
life  and  history  shall  be  illustrated,  more  es- 
pecially in  telling  of  the  boys  and  girls,  whose 
fathers  and  mothers  suffered  as  well  as  en- 
joyed. 

In  England,  the  very  men  who  fought,  and 
pleaded,  and  even  died  for  law  and  freedom, 
were  true  forefathers  of  the  American  Republic. 
They  uttered  much  the  same  words  and  pro- 
fessed the  identical  principles,  while,  better  yet, 
living  to  make  them  real,  as  those  which  we 
have  learned  from  the  lips  and  lives  of  Wash- 
ington, Lincoln,  Grant,  Roosevelt,  Taft,  and 
Wilson.  Therefore,  every  American  boy  and 

[9] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

girl,  we  are  sure,  will  enjoy  knowing  the  full 
story  of  the  Pilgrims  —  the  story  not  only  of 
the  fathers  and  mothers,  but  of  the  young  folks, 
scores  of  whom,  before  their  lives  ended,  had 
had  three  homes.  These  were  in  dear  old  Eng- 
land, in  brave  little  Holland,  and  in  glorious 
America. 

Across  the  North  Sea,  among  the  Dutch, 
however,  the  young  American  soldier  of  191 8, 
with  his  eyes  and  ears  open,  especially  if  he 
could  speak  and  understand  what  was  the  prin- 
cipal language  spoken  in  New  York  State  un- 
til after  the  Revolution,  would  feel  equally 
at  home.  He  would  recognize  many  familiar 
names,  words,  and  things,  the  church  and 
house  architecture,  the  interior  decoration  and 
table  service,  manners  and  customs  that  were 
the  same  in  the  United  States,  and  many  of 
them  exactly  like  those  in  colonial  days.  In  a 
word,  he  would  recognize  the  originals  of  that 
middle  region,  in  which  are  New  York,  New  Jer- 
sey, Pennsylvania,  and  Delaware,  that  forms 
distinctive  America.  People  and  vehicles  turned 
to  the  right,  not  to  the  left.  In  the  city  ordi- 
nances and  signs  one  could  read,  as  could  be 
read  in  old  Philadelphia,  "Turn  to  the  right,  as 
the  law  directs."  On  the  breakfast  table  would 
be  coffee,  rather  than  tea;  besides  crullers,  waf- 

[10  J 


HOW  THE  WORLD  LOOKED 

fles,  and  cookies  —  all  of  them  Dutch  words 
—  sandwiches,  turtle  soup,  and  other  things 
American  that  came  first  from  Holland. 

He  would  learn  where  Santa  Claas  lived  and 
got  his  name,  and  where  PInxter,  the  old  May- 
Day  festival,  and  Thanksgiving  Day,  and  New 
Year's  Day  calls  originated.  In  Black  Pete,  serv- 
ant of  Santa  Claas,  or  Saint  Nicholas,  he  would 
recognize  the  darky  servant-boy,  typical  of  Man- 
hattan in  New  Amsterdam  days.  He  would 
find  that  a  "boss"  is  the  honorable  title  of  a 
foreman.  The  word  for  a  town  hall,  Stad  Huys, 
would  sound  very  much  like  a  "state  house." 
He  might  hear  a  song  about  Paul  Jones  on  the 
streets.  In  the  museums  and  literature  he  would 
discover  a  wonderful  wealth  of  relics  of  the 
American  Revolution,  when  the  Dutch  helped 
us  to  win  our  independence,  lent  us  ships,  offi- 
cers, and  solid  money,  which,  when  paid  back 
in  1808,  amounted  to  ^14,000,000. 

In  the  cemeteries  and  on  the  door-plates  he 
would  recognize  the  family  names  of  two  of  our 
Presidents,  Van  Buren  and  Roosevelt,  to  say 
nothing  of  our  great  men  of  finance,  business, 
and  government.  Over  the  shop  signs  he  would 
recognize  hundreds  of  names  of  his  own  ances- 
tors, or  of  those  common  In  our  city  directories. 
Added  to  these  would  be  hundreds  more  of  peo- 

[  II] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

pie  of  Scottish,  Welsh,  and  Irish  descent,  now 
blended  with  the  Dutch  people.  He  might  no- 
tice that  the  names  of  John  Adams,  Benjamin 
Franklin,  and  George  Washington  were  as  fa- 
miliar in  Holland  as  are  those  of  Edison  and 
Hoover.  If  he  could  read  the  records  in  the  ar- 
chives, in  several  cities,  he  would  find  more  doc- 
uments about  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  than  could 
be  assembled  in  all  England.  There  he  would  see 
the  autographs  of  the  Pilgrims  —  lovers,  swains, 
wives  and  husbands  — ■  who  began  the  State  of 
Massachusetts.  Here  are  numerous  entries  of 
betrothals,  marriages,  burials,  tax-payings,  and 
matriculations  of  students  into  the  universities, 
who  became  famous  in  both  British  and  Ameri- 
can history.  Before  his  eyes  in  the  old  paintings 
made  in  the  days  of  the  Dutch  Republic,  would 
be  revealed  the  origin  of  the  red  and  white 
stripes  in  our  flag.  He  would  learn  that  the  first 
foreign  salute  fired  in  honor  of  the  American 
flag,  even  before  it  had  its  blue  field  of  stars, 
was  that  ordered  by  the  Dutch  governor  at 
Saint  Eustatius,  in  the  West  Indies,  on  No- 
vember 17,  1776,  from  which  island  our  fathers 
received  nearly  one  half  of  all  the  cannon, 
powder,  and  supplies  needed  in  our  War  for 
Independence. 

Our  soldier  boy  would  be  surprised  to  learn 

[12] 


HOW  THE  WORLD  LOOKED 

that  many  of  our  army  and  ship  terms  are  pure 
Dutch,  and  that  the  "  camel"  that  carried  Com- 
modore Perry's  fleet  over  the  bar  in  Lake  Erie, 
in  1813,  was  invented  in  Holland.  He  would 
recognize  on  the  map  the  names  of  hundreds  of 
places  in  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylva- 
nia, Delaware,  and  the  Northwestern  States  of 
Iowa,  Michigan,  and  Wisconsin. 

With  Dutch  money  the  American  would  have 
little  trouble,  quickly  discerning  that  the  deci- 
mal system,  on  which  ours  is  founded,  was  in 
use,  and  that  "mint,"  "dimes,"  "dollars,"  and 
"cents"  are  all  Dutch  words.  He  could  read 
street  names  and  places,  telling  of  English  and 
Americans  — ■  the  "  Brownists,"  "  Pilgrims,"  and 
"Puritans."  If  he  knew  Dutch  history  —  so 
shamefully  neglected  in  American  schools  and 
colleges  —  he  would  find  that  our  ancestors, 
who  signed  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
who  made  the  Constitution,  and  who  founded 
our  government,  borrowed  more,  especially  in 
the  federal  idea,  the  Senate,  and  the  Supreme 
Court,  from  the  Dutch  Republic  than  from 
the  English  monarchy;  because  in  colonial  and 
nation-making  days,  the  Dutch  Republic,  with 
all  its  defects  and  advantages,  was  a  living 
model.  He  would  note  that  this  people,  in  1579, 
throwing  off  the  yoke  of  Spain,  formed,  with  a 

[13] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

written  constitution,  a  federal  union  of  seven 
states,  all  represented  in  the  red  and  white 
stripes  of  the  flag,  and  issued  their  Declaration 
of  Independence  in  1581;  that  John  Adams  de- 
clared that  the  originals  of  the  two  republics 
were  as  one  transcript  from  the  same  page; 
while  Franklin  wrote  that,  in  love  of  liberty 
and  bravery  in  the  defense  of  it,  Holland  was 
"our  great  example." 

If  "the  Yank"  looked  further  Into  files  of 
Dutch  newspapers,  from  1770  to  1783,  he  would 
find  that  the  intellectuals  of  the  Dutch  Repub- 
lic were  our  constant  friends,  and  that  to  this 
day  vital  questions  are  decided  in  the  courts  of 
the  greatest  of  our  States  according  to  Dutch, 
and  not  British,  law.  If  he  talked  much  or  often 
with  the  people  in  their  native  language,  or  in 
English,  which  most  educated  Dutch  folk  use, 
he  would  discover  that  the  average  person  in 
Holland  knows  and  understands  much  more 
about  our  system  of  government  than  does  the 
average  Britisher. 

Still  further,  if  the  American  youth  In  khaki 
were  a  student  equally  of  American,  Nether- 
landish, and  British  history,  of  the  story  of 
France,  Ireland,  Scotland,  and  Wales,  as  well 
as  of  England,  he  would  be  convinced  that  the 
United  States  Is  more  of  a  New  Europe  than 

[14] 


HOW  THE  WORLD  LOOKED 

a  New  England.  The  Flemings  and  Walloons 
of  Belgium,  the  Dutch  and  the  Germans,  the 
Scotch-Irish  and  Welsh,  who  before  1770  settled 
the  Middle  States,  brought  many  things,  ideas, 
and  customs,  from  the  Continent,  that  have 
gone  into  American  life.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
Pilgrims  and  Puritans  also  imported  into  the 
Eastern  States  not  a  few  things  purely  Dutch; 
while  Lord  Baltimore,  the  descendant  of  a  Neth- 
erlander, did  the  same  in  Maryland.  By  all 
these  enriching  ideas  and  institutions  we  Amer- 
icans have  profited,  while  yet  grateful  to  Eng- 
land, the  home  of  our  fathers. 

In  short,  in  a  majority  of  the  things  most 
characteristically  American,  and  which  so  sur- 
prise the  Englishman  whose  historical  reading 
is  defective,  we  are,  in  our  inheritances,  as  much 
Dutch  and  Continental  as  we  are  English.  The 
Separatists,  or  Pilgrims,  from  1590  to  1625,  and 
the  Puritans  from  1580  to  1640,  learned  so  much 
in  the  Dutch  Republic,  that  he  who  does  not 
know  this  vital  fact  has  not  read  much  history, 
while  to  ignore  it  makes  a  caricature  of  the  tri- 
ple story,  (i)  of  the  Pilgrims  and  the  Puritans; 
(2)  how  the  British  Whigs  and  Liberals  fed 
their  souls  in  Holland  until,  in  1830,  England 
had  a  parliament  representing  men,  and  not 
land  only;  and  (3)  how  we  all,  on  this  side  of  the 

[  IS] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

Atlantic,  from  many  nations  and  countries,  be- 
came Americans. 

In  the  Dutch  archives  famlHarlty  with  the 
autographs.  Items,  and  records  about  the  Pil- 
grims makes  their  history  very  real.  In  a  word, 
Holland  was  one  of  their  homes,  and  the  Dutch 
republican  army  was  the  school  in  which  the 
pioneers  and  early  captains  of  New  England 
were  trained. 

Let  all  this  melt  Into  "the  infinite  azure  of 
the  past,"  with  charity  and  love,  though  not 
into  oblivion;  for  If  the  Tudor  and  Stuart  kings 
and  prelates  of  England  had  been  as  good  and 
kind.  In  giving  welcome  then,  to  the  Pilgrims,  as 
the  English  people  are  now  to  us  —  in  large 
measure  their  descendants  —  we  might  never 
have  had  the  glorious  Independent  American 
commonwealth,  and  never  have  "  hated  "  the 
England  of  to-day,  champion  of  freedom  and 
the  mother  of  nations.  Equally  true  is  it 
that  the  facts  and  the  proofs  demand  that  we 
must  hail  Holland  as  one  of  the  three  homes  of 
the  Pilgrims  and  one  of  the  fatherlands  of  the 
American  Nation.  And  this.  If  we  are  large- 
minded,  we  can  do  without  abating  one  jot  or 
tittle  of  our  love  to  the  land  of  our  sires,  beauti- 
ful, mighty,  glorious,  and  invincible  England. 


CHAPTER  II 
A  MIRROR  OF  ENGLISH  HISTORY 

Englishmen  of  to-day  can  hardly  believe  that, 
altogether,  thousands  of  people  in  England 
were  once  burned  for  their  religion,  or  for  what 
was  called  witchcraft;  or  were  hanged,  by  tens  of 
thousands,  for  trivial  offenses  —  such  as  steal- 
ing a  sheep  or  shooting  a  deer.  There  were  over 
two  hundred  kinds  of  wrongdoing  for  which 
death  by  sword,  axe,  or  rope  was  the  penalty. 
For  political  offenses  the  legal  custom  was  to 
chop  up  the  dead  man's  body  into  quarters  and 
distribute  these  over  the  country,  hanging  the 
flesh  and  bones  over  the  city  gateways.  It  was 
thought  by  thus  exposing  the  human  carrion  — 
"to  poison  half  mankind,"  as  Pope  says,  and  to 
furnish  food  for  dogs  and  birds  of  prey  —  that 
other  persons  would  be  deterred  from  crime. 
During  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII  seventy-two 
thousand  persons  were  hanged  or  beheaded  in 
England.  The  laws  were  frightfully  "religious" 
in  form,  but  not  in  spirit.  The  "high  displeas- 
ure of  God"  was  a  common  phrase  on  the 
statute  books.  The  priests  and  those  in  power 
seemed  to  be  so  busy  in  saving  souls  and  looking 

[  17] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

to  the  next  world  that  they  spared  little  time 
to  improve  this  one,  or  to  better  their  own  or 
the  people's  morals. 

Now  it  was  like  living  in  Tudor  England  to 
dwell,  as  I  did,  from  1870  to  1874,  in  the  inte- 
rior of  a  country  in  which  laws,  manners,  and 
customs  were  much  the  same  as  in  Queen  Eliza- 
beth's time.  There  was  no  such  thing  as  govern- 
ment of  the  people,  for  the  people,  or  by  the 
people.  At  the  top  was  a  ruler,  who  claimed  to 
represent  God  on  earth  and  to  be  his  special 
favorite.  Under  him  were  nobles,  who  lived 
finely  in  silk,  with  plenty  of  good  food  and  with 
many  servants.  Next  were  the  knights,  who 
paid  no  taxes,  but  wore  armor  in  war,  and  in 
peace  the  daily  costume  of  gentlemen.  As  mark 
of  their  rank  they  carried  swords.  They  had  a 
system  of  heraldry,  coats  of  arms  and  family 
crests,  which  were  embroidered  on  their  own  and 
their  servants'  coats.  In  fact,  one  could  tell, 
from  his  costume,  in  what  class  any  person  be- 
longed. 

There  were  also  thousands  of  monks  and 
priests  —  ten  times  more  than  were  necessary 
—  and  most  of  them  very  lazy.  All  these,  with 
the  nuns,  nobles,  gentry,  and  "religious"  peo- 
ple, numbering  in  all  over  a  tenth  of  the  popu- 
lation, did  not  work  with  their  hands,  but  they 

[18] 


A  MIRROR  OF  ENGLISH  HISTORY 

owned  the  land  and  lived  off  the  people,  who 
dwelt  In  small  houses  and  under  rigid  sump- 
tuary laws.  The  only  large  buildings  were  castles, 
monasteries,  and  temples;  but  along  the  roads 
were  thousands  of  little  shrines,  with  images, 
candles,  and  incense,  where  people  prayed  and 
told  their  beads.  There  were  no  streets  lighted 
at  night,  and  every  traveler  must  carry  a  lan- 
tern. Most  of  the  larger  towns  or  cities  were 
walled.  Beside  much  that  was  horrible,  there 
was  more  that  was  picturesque. 

Below  the  privileged  classes  was  the  great 
mass  of  farmers,  traders,  peasants,  and  working- 
people  of  all  sorts.  Below  these,  again,  were 
actors,  jugglers,  strolling  players,  beggars,  and 
outcasts.  Of  the  four  grades  of  common  folk, 
the  farmer  ranked  the  highest.  The  merchant 
and  shopkeeper  were  lower  in  the  scale,  for  trade 
was  not  in  honor  and  commerce  by  land  or  sea 
was  just  beginning.  Most  business  was  done  at 
fairs. 

These  common  folk,  no  matter  how  rich  some 
of  them  might  be  —  though  few  of  these  there 
were  — •  were  not  allowed  to  ride  on  horses,  or 
to  wear  any  but  very  cheap  clothes.  They  could 
not  spend  their  cash  as  they  might  wish  to  do. 
When  their  children  married,  no  one  was  al- 
lowed to  make  a  wedding  present  worth  over  a 

[19] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

few  cents.  They  paid  all  the  taxes  and  worked 
hard,  the  whole  year  round,  to  support  their 
superiors.  A  farmer  could  not  buy,  sell,  or  ex- 
change land,  or  bequeath  it  by  will  to  his  chil- 
dren. He  was  not  allowed  to  think  for  himself,  or 
to  worship,  except  in  the  way  the  Government 
ordered  or  allowed.  If  he  did,  he  might  be  im- 
prisoned, beheaded,  or  burned  alive.  He  must 
do  just  as  his  lord  or  priest  told  him,  for  Church 
and  State  were  hand  in  hand.  In  fact,  many 
were  told  that  if  they  did  not  leave  their  money 
to  the  priests,  their  souls  would  not  be  saved. 
There  were  some  very  sarcastic  proverbs  about 
the  part  that  money  played  in  religion,  and  also 
concerning  the  profits  of  the  church  corpora- 
tions. 

Except  for  a  few  general  rules,  the  law  was 
secret  and  no  one  but  the  magistrates  knew 
what  its  details  were.  If  arrested  for  crime,  a 
man  was  thrust  into  a  horrible,  cold  prison,  with 
a  crowd  of  convicts,  and  there  he  might  starve 
if  not  fed  by  his  relatives.  To  obtain  his  con- 
fession he  might  be  tortured,  by  being  beaten, 
crushed,  torn,  branded,  or  burned.  He  had  to 
kneel  before  his  judges  at  the  trial.  When  his 
head  was  cut  off  it  was  stuck  on  top  of  a  pole,  set 
up  beside  the  road,  nailed  up  over  the  city  gates, 
or  placed  on  a  pillory.  Such  sights  were  very 

[20] 


A  MIRROR  OF  ENGLISH  HISTORY 

common  and  in  some  places  daily  seen.  After 
imprisonment  everybody  shunned  the  criminal 
and  there  were  no  plans  for  reforming  him.  In 
some  parts  of  the  country  they  saved  the  ex- 
pense of  maintaining  prisons,  by  trying  the  con- 
demned man  in  the  morning,  cutting  off  his 
head  in  the  afternoon,  and  burying  him  before 
sunset.  There  were  different  codes  of  law  and 
punishment  for  the  knights  and  gentry  and  for 
the  plain  people.  In  front  of  every  magistrate's 
office  was  the  trio  of  defensive  weapons  to  dis- 
arm rough  or  drunken  knights  or  armed  men, 
besides  the  "catchpole,"  of  which  we  shall  hear 
further  on.  In  a  word,  as  compared  with  to-day, 
neither  Japanese  in  1870  nor  Englishmen  in 
1 590  had  freedom  of  conscience,  and  little  of 
body. 

There  was  no  free  general  education  for  the 
common  people.  Books  were  chiefly  for  priests, 
clerks,  monks,  or  the  sons  of  nobles  and  gen- 
tlemen. Even  the  universities  were  not  much 
above  the  grade  of  the  grammar  schools  of  our 
time.  The  so-called  "public"  schools  —  that  is, 
outside  the  church  or  monastery  —  were  not 
public  at  all.  Education  paid  for  by  general  tax- 
ation, and  open  and  free  to  all,  was  unknown. 
"Hospitals"  were  very  rare  and  were  far  from 
being  the  places  of  comfort  we  now  know.  There 

[21] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

were  few,  indeed,  where  the  very  poor  and 
friendless  could  go.  The  dentist  was  usually  a 
blacksmith,  or  carpenter,  and  the  barber  a  sur- 
geon. A  druggist's  shop  was  a  museum  of  curi- 
osities and  its  drugs  were  often  very  repulsive. 
Trained  physicians  were  almost  unknown,  for 
science  was  just  beginning.  In  its  place,  super- 
stition ruled  men's  minds  everywhere,  among 
both  the  learned  and  the  unlettered,  the  priests 
being  especially  ignorant  and  hostile  to  any- 
thing new,  and  using  a  dead  language  in  their 
rituals. 

All  the  creatures  of  imagination,  such  as  fair- 
ies, imps,  nixies,  sprites,  demons,  and  evil  spir- 
its of  all  sorts,  were  believed  to  be  very  real, 
very  busy,  very  active,  and  ever  close  at  hand. 
The  priests,  in  the  name  of  religion,  were  well 
paid  to  keep  off  these  imaginary  beings,  for  the 
people  believed  in  their  powers  of  evil.  At  al- 
most every  crossroad  stood  a  shrine  or  image, 
under  which,  or  at  the  temple  doors,  beggars 
and  lepers  —  and  there  were  a  good  many  of 
them  —  sat  and  pleaded  for  alms.  The  lunar 
calendar  was  in  vogue  and  New  Year's  Day 
came  in  February,  or  March.  The  year  was  di- 
vided up  into  seasons  and  festival  days,  with 
names  based  on  church  rules  or  farmers'  cus- 
toms. 

[22] 


A  MIRROR  OF  ENGLISH  HISTORY 

Nearly  every  child  born  was  in  terror,  more 
or  less,  and  all  his  life,  because  he  was  taught 
that  malicious  creatures  were  everywhere.  The 
devils  lurked  singly,  in  strange  places,  such  as 
woods,  swamps,  and  heaths;  or  they  roamed  in 
throngs  or  droves,  especially  on  the  night  wind 
and  in  storm  and  darkness.  Children  were  told 
that  the  sacred  bells  would  drive  them  away, 
and  it  was  imagined  that  by  making  a  certain 
sign  on  their  breasts,  or  repeating  a  formula  of 
words  taught  them,  they  would  be  protected 
from  harm.  Boys  and  girls  wore  charms  or  amu- 
lets around  their  necks  to  defend  them  from 
disease  or  the  devils.  Hardly  a  house  or  a  sta- 
ble but  had  nailed  above  the  door  something 
bought  from  the  priests,  to  ward  off  evil.  In 
fact,  being  a  priest  was  one  of  the  best  of  money- 
making  trades.  If  a  man  were  poor,  his  "reli- 
gion" cost  him  a  large  part  of  his  wages. 

The  center  or  focus  of  life  in  every  village, 
and  one  of  the  largest  of  buildings,  was  that  in 
which  the  people  worshiped,  said  their  prayers, 
and  heard  sermons  or  the  mass.  These  were  all 
in  the  possession  of  the  priests,  and  were  ruled 
by  them  and  not  by  the  people;  for  the  common 
person  was  not  allowed  to  think,  but  only  to 
obey.  He  must  pay  the  priest  or  monk,  throw 
his  coins  in  the  box,  and  hold  his  tongue.  It  cost 

[23] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

a  good  deal  of  money  to  be  buried,  for  It  was 
taught  that  the  use  of  bells  and  candles,  cen- 
sers and  Incense,  with  the  chanting  of  prayers, 
and  many  other  things,  were  necessary  to  scare 
away  the  demons  and  open  the  gates  of  Para- 
dise. Even  these  were  not  enough,  for  cash  must 
be  paid  for  petitions  to  the  many  saints  In  be- 
half of  the  dead  person,  to  get  his  or  her  soul 
out  of  the  pains  of  the  other  world.  There  were 
many  "chantries"  or  chapels  for  this  purpose. 

Yet  religion  had  Its  sunny  side  also,  for  peo- 
ple, whether  Buddhist  or  Christian,  are  alike 
In  their  nature.  Feasting,  pilgrimages  —  which, 
when  made  In  crowds,  were  much  like  picnics 
or  pleasure  excursions  —  were  common.  Yet 
the  more  there  were  of  these  merrymakings  and 
indulgences  of  the  appetites,  with  gluttony  and 
coarse  amusements  allowed  by  the  church,  or 
temple  rulers,  the  more  were  the  people  kept  In 
Ignorance  and  obedience  to  their  rulers.  From 
the  time  of  Lao-Tsze,  the  Chinese  philosopher, 
to  the  present,  the  people  are  not  Inclined  to 
think  deeply  when  their  stomachs  are  over-full. 

In  still  another  way  the  people  among  whom 
I  lived  were  like  those  of  my  forefathers  In 
Rouen,  In  France,  at  Hastings,  In  Nottingham, 
in  Switzerland,  and  In  Wales;  that  Is,  there  were 
a  few  men  of  earnest  mind  who  protested  against 

[24] 


A  MIRROR  OF  ENGLISH  HISTORY 

thus  keeping  the  masses  in  ignorance.  These 
men  insisted  that  the  priests  and  men  in  power 
built  fences,  as  of  barbed  wire,  to  keep  earnest 
souls  from  seeking  the  truth.  If  these  thinking 
men,  whether  in  Japan  or  in  England,  could 
have  had  their  own  way,  they  would  have 
smashed  the  images,  abolished  monasteries  and 
monopolies,  and  stopped  the  dictation  of  for- 
eigners living  in  a  distant  country.  They  would 
have  the  people  educated  to  read,  to  write,  to 
think,  and  to  know  history.  For  religion,  they 
would  have  good  teachers,  and  church  officers 
elected  by  themselves,  and  be  thus  trained  in 
self-government.  They  believed  that  as  religion 
becomes  purer  and  more  spiritual,  it  drops  the 
sacrificial  forms  and  becomes  educational,  ap- 
pealing less  to  the  senses,  the  body,  and  the 
emotions,  and  more  to  the  mind.  These  men 
hated  excess  of  symbols,  all  priestly  oppression, 
all  state  religion,  and  the  interference  of  poli- 
ticians with  the  conscience.  They  would  have 
the  soul  wholly  free.  These  men  knew  that  reli- 
gions are  many  —  as  numerous  as  weeds  —  but 
religion  is  one. 

But  what  happened  ?  In  the  story  of  freedom 
such  men  were  treated  exactly  alike,  whether 
in  old  Japan  or  in  old  England,  for  human  na- 
ture —  call  it  pagan.  Christian,  Anglo-Saxon, 

,    [  25  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

or  Chinese  —  Is  always  and  everywhere  the 
same.  Those  men,  bringers-In  of  a  better  time, 
who,  In  our  day  are  honored  In  bronze  statues 
and  splendid  monuments,  were,  In  old  days, 
arrested,  thrown  Into  prisons,  their  books  and 
writings  burned  or  otherwise  destroyed.  Many 
of  them  were  put  to  death  by  fire,  sword,  or 
the  gallows.  English  history  and  Japanese  are 
astonishingly  alike.  Liberty  of  either  thinking 
or  printing  was  not,  at  first,  allowed  by  kings, 
queens,  or  bishops,  whether  Buddhist  or  Chris- 
tian. In  a  word,  no  Asiatic  need  be  ashamed  of 
his  country's  history  when  compared  with  that 
of  Europe;  for  In  both  the  evolution  of  liberty 
of  thought  and  conscience  was  slow. 


'  CHAPTER  III 
ENGLAND'S  MOST  WONDERFUL  CENTURY 

To  every  alert  youth,  in  every  generation,  the 
century  in  which  he  Hves  must  seem  the  great- 
est, for  he  is  part  of  it  and  is  growing  with  its 
growth.  His  interest  in  events  and  things  visible 
is  keener  and  his  opportunity  is  before  him. 

The  England  of  the  sixteenth  century  was 
that  of  new  horizons,  of  great  sailors  and  ex- 
plorers, and  of  Shakespeare.  There  were  many 
unusual  happenings  and  mighty  movements. 
New  people,  fresh  ideas,  and  astonishing  inven- 
tions so  crowded  the  stage  of  history  that  this 
era  may  perhaps  be  named  as  greatest  of  all;  at 
least  for  the  "right  little,  tight  little  island." 
These  were  indeed  "spacious  days." 

After  the  Middle  Ages  all  Europe  had  ex- 
panded. Then  followed  the  discovery  of  Amer- 
ica, which  pushed  England  out  into  the  world, 
made  her  look  westward  and  gave  her  a  new 
point  of  view.  Her  people  thereafter  had  many 
and  thrilling  hopes  and  expectations,  with  new 
interests.  The  ocean  path  opened  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  setting  sun  and  ever  toward  a  new 
morning.  Its  lure  made  England  the  successful 
rival  of  Spain  —  then  the  dominating  world 

[27] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

power.  Adventure  and  enterprise,  besides  re- 
vealing the  riches  of  the  Orient,  started  Mother 
England  on  her  unique  career  of  planting  colo- 
nies and  building  nations.  Bold  sailors  carried 
her  flag  around  the  globe.  In  a  word,  from  being 
insular  and  unimportant,  England  became  Im- 
perial. She  created  an  empire  greater  than  the 
Roman. 

Yet  all  these  doings,  while  very  wonderful, 
were  beyond  her  borders;  England's  most  star- 
tling achievement  was  the  discovery  of  herself. 
She  found  out  that  liberty  is  ever  to  be  won 
only  by  those  who  seek  it.  "Who  would  be  free, 
themselves  must  strike  the  blow."  The  people 
learned  to  have  faith,  first  in  God,  and  then 
in  themselves  through  a  more  direct  and  vital 
vision  of  truth.  They  found  out,  also,  that  their 
fellow  sinners,  whether  living  under  crowns  or 
in  canonicals,  could  not  monopolize  the  divine 
favor.  We  of  English  descent  do  well  to  sing: 
"Our  fathers'  God,  to  Thee, 
Author  of  Liberty"; 

for  our  English  ancestors,  by  both  faith  and 
works,  proved  the  truth  we  sing. 

Before  Tudor  times  the  conscience  of  Eng- 
land had  been  ruled  by  a  potentate,  the  head 
of  a  religious  corporation  in  Italy,  a  thousand 
miles  away.  From  the  Greek  title  of  this  ruler, 

[28] 


A  WONDERFUL  CENTURY 

which  means  "father,"  we  get  our  affectionate 
terms,  "papa"  and  "pop."  About  1575  an  Eng- 
lish rhymester  spoke  of  his  "Enemie  pretended, 
but  in  hart  a  friend  to  the  Papa."  This  corpora- 
tion had  Inherited  the  grand  traditions  of  the 
Roman  Empire  and  its  methods  were  those  of 
the  Caesars. 

Not  satisfied  with  religion.  It  was  even  more 
concerned  with  politics.  It  taught  what  we  now 
regard  as  the  horrible  heresy  that  political  rul- 
ers could  Interfere  with  the  conscience.  In  Eng- 
land it  wielded  Instant  power  over  all  the  af- 
fairs of  life  and  Its  stern  rules  had  to  be  obeyed. 
Without  Its  permission,  men  could  not  be  mar- 
ried or  burled.  It  overawed  all,  from  the  king 
to  the  pauper.  It  was  able  to  drive  a  monarch 
from  his  throne,  or  set  the  mark  of  Cain  upon 
the  common  man.  For  slavery  of  conscience 
and  for  political  interference  in  another  coun- 
try's affairs  there  had  been  nothing  exceeding 
it  in  history. 

Every  time  we  sing  our  national  anthem, 
"  My  country,  't  Is  of  thee,"  we  ought  to  feel 
thankful  that  our  English  ancestors  first  threw 
off  the  yoke  of  this  Italian  corporation,  and  then 
tamed  their  own  tyrant  kings  to  be  their  serv- 
ants. Our  debt  to  England  can  never  be  fully 
repaid. 

[29] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

How  the  world  has  changed!  To-day,  the 
British  king,  instead  of  being  above  the  law,  a 
tyrant  and  a  terror  to  his  subjects,  is  a  gentle- 
man beloved  by  all,  a  true  friend  and  servant 
of  the  people,  respected  throughout  the  earth. 
The  pope,  in  place  of  being  constantly  mixed 
up  in  politics,  alternately  the  master  or  the  pup- 
pet of  kings  and  armies,  is  a  Christian  bishop, 
honored  among  the  nations  as  the  spiritual 
leader  of  millions  whose  bond  is  that  of  love 
and  reverence.  Instead  of  an  English  bishop 
being  a  feudal  lord,  liege-man  of  the  king,  and 
an  arbitrary  magistrate,  he  is  the  honored  over- 
seer of  a  flock  and  often  among  the  noblest  and 
most  useful  of  men.  More  and  more  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  Master,  "My  Kingdom  is  not  of 
this  world,"  prevails  in,  and  because  of,  the 
separation  of  Church  and  State  —  a  principle 
which  lies  at  the  foundation  of  the  Pilgrim  faith 
and  the  American  Republic. 

Then,  also  for  the  first  time,  England,  in  Tu- 
dor days,  welcomed  to  her  shores  thousands  of 
Belgian  fugitives,  escaping  from  the  same  slav- 
ery of  conscience  and  from  the  Spanish  yoke. 
This  influx,  beginning  in  1567,  was  like  the  hid- 
ing of  leaven  in  a  lump,  to  work  transformation; 
for  these  people  changed  England's  economic 
life.  Heretofore  the  chief  English  industry  had 

[30] 


A  WONDERFUL  CENTURY 

been  the  keeping  of  sheep  and  the  raising  of 
wool,  which  was  sold  in  Flanders.  "The  sheep's 
foot  turns  sands  into  gold,"  said  the  proverb. 
This  trade  had  been  England's  greatest  source 
of  wealth,  so  that  the  crimson  upholstery,  on 
which  the  speaker  of  the  Upper  House  sits,  is 
called  the  "Woolsack,"  for,  of  old,  his  seat  was 
only  a  bag  of  wool.  Yet  besides  this  one  export, 
England,  being  a  land  of  raw  materials  chiefly, 
had  hardly  any  foreign  trade  or  commerce  and 
very  few  crafts,  factories,  banks,  or  printing 
presses,  with  only  the  crudest  sort  of  agricul- 
ture. Thus,  from  one  of  the  poorest,  the  Eng- 
lish became  one  of  the  richest,  of  nations.  Once 
wholly  agricultural,  they  developed  into  a  man- 
ufacturing people. 

These  Belgian  and  Dutch  refugees  for  con- 
science' sake  were  skilled  farmers,  workmen, 
mechanics,  weavers,  dyers,  artists,  bankers,  and 
merchants.  They  were  artificers  in  lace,  tap- 
estry, and  cloth,  men  and  women  who  made 
things  both  fine  and  useful,  such  as  only  city 
folk  had  ever  seen.  Their  trades  were  so  won- 
derful that  the  English  called  them  "mys- 
teries." Within  two  generations  garden  vegeta- 
bles, unknown  before,  and  new  and  larger  crops 
of  grain  and  grass,  with  improved  farming,  had 
made  a  new  landscape.  England's  wealth  and 

1 31] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

population  doubled.  So,  when  the  seventeenth 
century  opened,  the  nation  was  strong  enough 
to  defy  all  enemies  and  to  hold  its  own  in  the 
world.  In  the  third  generation  thousands  of  the 
sons  of  these  refugees  formed  a  large  element 
in  the  Parliamentary  army. 

The  Italian  potentate  might  excommunicate 
her  sovereigns,  but  verbal  thunders  hurt  them 
not.  Never  again  would  England  allow  the  serv- 
ants of  a  foreigner  to  meddle  with  her  domes- 
tic affairs,  or  to  have  any  rule  within  her  bor- 
ders —  not  even  under  the  pretext  of  religion. 

How  wonderful  that  sixteenth  century  was, 
we  have  only  to  learn  by  presenting,  in  epitome, 
its  story. 

After  several  foreign  dynasties  on  the  throne 
of  England,  the  Welshman  had  his  turn,  as  the 
Scotsman  was  later  to  have  his.  In  the  Wars 
of  the  Roses  —  which  consisted  chiefly  of  skir- 
mishes between  nobles  of  rival  families  in  which 
the  people  had  little  interest  —  Henry  Tudor, 
that  is,  Henry  Theodore,  met  his  opponent 
Richard  on  the  battle-field.  There  he  won  vic- 
tory and  became  king. 

Tudor  is  only  Welsh  for  Theodore.  Nearly  all 
modern  Welsh  family  names  are  taken  from 
Christian  names  with  s  added,  which  means 
"son,"  as  in  Jefferson,  Williams,  etc.;  or,  from 

[32] 


A  WONDERFUL  CENTURY 

some  feature  in  the  landscape,  as  Penn,  from 
pen,  a  point,  etc. 

Meanwhile  affairs  at  one  end  of  the  earth 
affected  England  at  the  farthest  west.  That  is 
the  world's  history:  the  action  of  Asia  —  where 
most  things  we  enjoy  and  suffer  originated  — 
upon  Europe  and  America.  It  is  because  his- 
torians ignore  this  fact  that  we  get  such  narrow 
notions  about  ourselves  and  "the  Orientals," 
and  hear  such  rubbish  as  "never  the  twain 
shall  meet,"  the  "unchanging  East,"  etc. 

The  Turks,  in  1453,  had  captured  Constan- 
tinople and  driven  the  Greek  scholars  into  west- 
ern Europe.  These  men  came  west  with  ideas 
that  are  as  powerful  as  armies,  besides  words 
that  cut  like  swords,  and,  even  better,  give 
light.  They  brought  the  New  Testament  in 
their  hands.  This  little  library  of  biography  and 
letters,  written,  much  of  it,  in  prison  or  exile,  by 
men  suffering  for  conscience'  sake,  who  were 
"pilgrims  and  strangers  on  the  earth,"  proved 
to  be,  to  oppressors,  worse  than  dynamite.  It 
was  as  the  TNT  explosive,  used  in  the  big  war, 
through  which  we  have  just  passed ;  because  the 
reading  of  this  little  book  was  bound  to  upset 
the  prevalent  systems  of  Church  and  State,  and 
to  bring  to  birth  republics  and  democracies.  To 
allow  it  to  be  read  by  the  people,  in  a  true  trans- 

[33] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

latlon  from  the  Greek,  was  almost  certain  to 
tumble  over  both  thrones  and  cathedral  chairs. 
Its  translation  and  publication  in  common  lan- 
guage meant  a  moral  earthquake.  Plain  folks 
would  quickly  find  out  that  kings  were  as  great 
sinners,  and  often  as  great  fools,  as  commoners, 
and  as  surely  to  be  punished  for  both  their  folly 
and  their  wickedness. 

Worse  yet,  if  "Hodge"  —  which  is  the  nick- 
name of  the  English  farm  laborer  —  should 
learn  to  read,  he  might  discover  what  both  real 
and  original  Christianity,  and  its  counterfeit, 
were.  He  would  see,  for  example,  that  apart 
from  teachers,  the  only  necessary  executive 
officers  in  the  early  Church  were  two,  overseers 
and  servants;  that  is,  bishops  and  deacons,  as 
Paul  wrote  to  the  first  Christian  Church  in 
Europe,  at  Philippi.  Still  more  menacing,  to 
crowns  and  mitres  and  "princes  of  the  Church," 
was  the  New  Testament  record  that  the  people 
elected  their  own  officers  by  votes,  in  a  show  of 
lifted  hands,  as  the  Book  of  Acts  tells  us.  It 
might  even  dawn  upon  them  that  a  "church" 
was  not  a  building,  or  a  corporation  with  polit- 
ical power  over  the  souls  of  men,  whether  Chris- 
tian or  Hebrew. 

The  result,  so  dreadful  to  monks  and  prelates, 
would  be  that  religion  would  be  transferred  to 

[34] 


A  WONDERFUL  CENTURY 

the  home  and  family,  with  its  seat  in  the  con- 
science. Then  a  man's  character  would  be 
judged  by  his  acts  instead  of  by  his  words.  This 
would  be  disastrous  for  kings  and  church 
princes,  for  Bible  reading  showed  that  in  the 
ancient  Christian  congregations  neither  kings 
nor  prelates  had  anything  to  do  with  the  matter 
of  personal  religion. 

In  the  early  days  a  bishop  — •  that  Is,  a  super- 
intendent, guardian,  inspector,  or  overseer — • 
was  simply  the  pastor  of  one  church,  and  he  was 
chosen  by  the  church  members.  In  open  meet- 
ing, by  a  show  of  hands.  All  the  first  churches 
were  "conventicles,"  such  as  Queen  Elizabeth 
denounced  by  "law";  that  is,  they  were  small 
companies  of  believers  who  held  meetings  in 
private  houses;  no  such  thing  as  an  edifice, 
called  a  "church"  or  a  "cathedral"  —  that 
is  a  chair-house  —  being  known  for  three  cen- 
turies after  the  crucifixion.  The  very  word 
"church,"  now  popularly  used  to  mean  a  build- 
ing, is  a  curious  corruption  of  the  original  term, 
meaning  a  company  of  people. 

Moreover,  the  language  of  the  first  Chris- 
tians and  of  the  New  Testament  was  Greek,  not 
Latin.  Readers  would  find,  too,  that  many  of 
the  customs,  fashionable  in  Christian  churches 
since  the  Middle  Ages,  had  been  borrowed  from 

[35] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

the  heathen  or  introduced  from  Buddhism; 
such  as  priestly  uniforms  or  vestments,  milH- 
nery,  lace  coats  or  shirts,  lights,  incense,  beads, 
rosaries,  prayers  for  the  dead  and  to  the  saints, 
angels  having  feathers  and  wings,  and  the  use  of 
books  to  pray  out  of.  When  they  saw  that  the 
Saviour's  memorial  supper  had  been  changed 
from  a  social  meal  to  a  priestly  function,  made 
into  a  passion  play,  set  forth  in  the  form  of  a 
drama,  and  called  "the  mass,"  they  were  both 
surprised  and  pained.  Seeing  this,  together  with 
"consecrated  ground"  —  from  which  all  ex- 
cept adherents  to  one  form  of  ritual  were  re- 
fused burial  —  besides  a  thousand  other  things 
unknown  in  the  New  Testament,  resulting  in 
corruption  of  the  pure  and  primitive  faith,  they 
would  ask  disagreeable  questions  which  might 
disturb  the  priests  to  answer.  They  might  even 
find  out  the  true  history  of  the  Church;  and,  in 
fact,  they  did  find  it  out.  They  believed  that  the 
Church  could  exist  without  the  State,  and  reli- 
gion flourish  outside  of  politics. 

To-day,  in  our  free  country,  we  have  dropped 
the  Roman,  the  Tudor,  and  the  Stuart  idea, 
that  every  one  must  think  and  believe  alike. 
So  has  England.  We  have  substituted  Nature's 
method  of  variety  in  harmony.  All  these  differ- 
ent outward  ways  of  worshiping  God  —  Greek, 

[36] 


A  WONDERFUL  CENTURY 

Roman,  Russian,  Reformed,  Episcopal,  Quaker, 
or  what  not  — ■  are  left  to  the  conscience  of  the 
individual,  or  to  the  vote  of  the  congregation; 
but  to  have  any  one  method  of  belief  or  worship 
forced  upon  us,  on  pain  of  torture,  imprison- 
ment, or  death,  seems  barbarous,  and  is  to  be 
resisted. 

In  what  respect  were  these  Europeans  differ- 
ent from  Chinese  or  Japanese,  who  contempo- 
raneously engaged  in  the  same  cruel  business 
of  persecution  ?  Before  they  knew  it,  our  Sep- 
aratist ancestors  were  good  Americans. 

Let  us  understand  at  once  the  difference  In 
purpose  and  principle,  between  Pilgrim  and 
Puritan,  between  the  ruling  ideas  of  the  Middle 
Ages  and  of  modern  times.  With  the  Anabap- 
tists, the  Dutch  Republic,  the  Pilgrims,  and  the 
United  States  of  America,  and  now,  with  most 
civilized  nations,  religion  is  a  matter  of  the  in- 
dividual conscience;  with  the  others,  religion  is 
and  was  made  an  engine  of  government.  In 
none,  as  yet,  however,  is  either  perfection  found 
or  absolute  consistency  exhibited. 


CHAPTER  IV 
FUN  AND  PLAY  IN  THE  OLD  HOME 

One  of  the  best  ways  of  understanding  the  Pil- 
grim men  and  women  is  to  study  their  Hves 
when  they  were  boys  and  girls.  For  permanent 
impressions  made  and  influences  on  character, 
we  must  look  to  the  working  in  early  life  of  the 
factors  of  environment.  In  later  years  the  forces 
of  heredity  have  freer  and  often  inexorable  play. 
In  middle  age  men  and  women  find  the  inherit- 
ances from  ancestors  more  powerful  even  than 
their  own  wills.  Yet  to  discern  and  appreciate 
the  normal  adult  as  he  is,  when  the  faculties  are 
in  balance,  we  must  look  to  his  childhood. 

George  Washington  declared  that  the  forces 
of  ability  and  experience  are  best  blended  be- 
tween the  ages  of  thirty-five  and  fifty-five.  A 
true  representation  of  his  boyhood  gives  a  clear 
insight  into  the  life  of  our  great  leader.  The 
authentic  anecdotes  show  that  the  boy  was 
father  of  the  man. 

In  the  case  of  those  who  left  the  church  and 
country  of  England,  to  seek  a  new  environment, 
in  order  to  hand  down  a  different  sort  of  hered- 
ity, a  true  picture  of  life  and  amusement  in 
the  England  of  their  time  explains  why  they  re- 

[38] 


FUN  AND  PLAY  IN  THE  OLD  HOME 

jected  most  of  the  popular  sports  and  chose  a 
more  serious  Ufe.  We  shall  see  why,  after  turn- 
ing their  backs  on  their  old  home,  they  spoke 
of  it  as  "Egypt."  Their  experience  was  as  the 
nightmare  of  slavery  appears  to  the  freedmen 
of  America.  These  Non-Conformists  read  and 
re-read  the  story  of  deliverance  from  Pharaoh, 
and  they  sang  of  the  "year  of  jubilee"  as  the 
Conformists  could  not;  for  "They  jest  at  scars 
who  never  felt  a  wound." 

We  shall  glance  at  those  English  sports,  in 
Tudor  and  Stuart  times,  to  which  a  boy  natu- 
rally looked  for  enjoyment.  To  him  they  seemed 
appropriate,  because  so  popular,  and  yet  those 
most  delighted  in  by  all  classes  inflicted  pain 
and  suffering  upon  the  dumb  brutes. 

Closely  allied  in  morals  to  Spanish  bull-fights 
was  bear-baiting  or  the  worrying  of  Bruin  by 
English  mastiffs.  This  brutish  enjoyment  was 
delighted  in  by  all,  from  queens  to  scullions. 
That  "bright  Occidental  star,"  Queen  Eliza- 
beth, sat  through  the  process  of  tormenting 
thirteen  bears  in  one  day.  She  was  the  Diana  of 
English  history,  "  hunting  every  other  day  until 
six  or  seven  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,"  and  bring- 
ing down  many  a  deer  with  her  crossbow.  Since 
at  times  the  theater  might  interfere  with  the 
delectable  sport  of  bear-baiting.  Her  Majesty 

[39] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

had  an  edict  issued  in  1591  that  on  Thursday, 
or  bear-baiting  day,  no  drama  should  be  per- 
formed. 

In  the  "Paris,"  the  most  famous  bear-garden 
at  Southwark,  in  London,  were  two  animals  re- 
nowned for  their  claws  and  teeth;  one  named 
Sackerson  and  the  other  Harry  Huncks.  These 
could  upset,  tear,  or  drive  oif  the  attacking 
dogs ;  but  the  bear  "ward  "  or  owner  was  careful 
to  see  that  his  money-making  pets  were  never 
too  much  mauled  by  his  canine  rivals.  These 
bear-baiting  shows  were  catchpenny  affairs.  An 
admittance  fee  was  charged,  and  Sunday  was 
the  great  day  when  the  manager  would  "  ring  in 
the  brass";  the  gate  money  being  a  halfpenny 
for  each  person.  To  see  the  bear  rear  itself, 
tumble,  strike  out,  and  claw,  often  bloody  and 
"slavering"  while  in  the  ring,  delighted  the 
spectators. 

Even  the  clergy  were  so  fond  of  this  brutal- 
izing pastime  that,  like  fashionable  parsons  at 
our  seaside  or  other  bathing-places  of  old,  they 
would  hurry  or  adjourn  divine  service  in  order 
to  be  present  and  see  the  big  game.  In  many 
cases  in  England,  as  on  the  Continent,  bears 
were  kept  at  the  expense  of  the  town,  as  at 
Berne,  or  "Bear  Town,"  in  Switzerland.  When 
the  animal  thus  kept  for  public  amusement 

[401 


FUN  AND  PLAY  IN  THE  OLD  HOME 

died,  the  parish  officers  were,  in  some  cases, 
known  to  sell  the  Bible  from  the  church  desk  in 
order  to  buy  a  new  brute. 

Many  are  the  veiled  or  open  references  in 
Shakespeare  to  this  pastime.  In  "Twelfth 
Night,"  Sir  Andrew  Ague  Cheek,  who,  when  in 
college,  furnished  an  example  too  frequent,  of 
the  student  who  never  allows  his  studies  to  in- 
terfere with  his  academic  course,  said,  in  later 
life:  "I  would  I  had  bestowed  that  time  in 
the  tongues  [languages]  that  I  have  in  fencing, 
dancing,  and  bear-baiting.  O,  had  I  but  fol- 
lowed the  arts!"  This  is  the  wail  of  the  derelict 
and  submerged  ex-student  In  every  age,  and 
most  pathetic  is  the  story  of  those  quondam 
spendthrifts  of  time,  strength,  and  money,  who 
in  after  years  attempt  when  too  late  to  redeem 
the  wasted  years. 

Once  in  a  while  the  bear  broke  loose,  adding 
an  unexpected  and  undesirable  item  to  the 
programme.  It  was  highly  exciting  when  the 
maddened  brute  turned  upon  its  human  tor- 
mentors. Stories  are  told  of  big  bites  by  Bruin 
out  of  the  calf  of  many  a  runaway  on  these 
occasions.  The  Puritans  kept  this  sport  within 
bounds,  securing  at  first  only  regulation,  rather 
than  prohibition;  but  during  the  Common- 
wealth they  abolished  the  cruel  custom;  which, 

[41] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

however,  was  re-Introduced  at  the  Restoration. 
This  degrading  sport  was  not  swept  out  of  ex- 
istence by  law  until  1835. 

In  his  "History  of  England,"  Hume  wrote 
that  "even  bear-baiting  was  esteemed  heathen- 
ish and  unchristian ;  the  sport  of  it,  not  the  in- 
humanity, gave  offense."  There  is  more  fun 
than  fact  in  Macaulay's  rhetoric,  when  he  fol- 
lowed Hume,  telling  us  that "  the  Puritan  hated 
bear-baiting,  not  because  it  gave  pain  to  the 
bear,  but  because  it  gave  pleasure  to  the  spec- 
tators." Both  of  these  witty  statements  are 
more  or  less  false.  One  old  writer  declared  that 
this  sport  "drew  all  the  devils  to  one  place"  — 
which  might  be  the  bear's  opinion  also.  In  this 
matter  British  Christian  society  fell  below  the 
moral  standard  and  the  general  practice  of 
Buddhism. 

Bull-baiting  was  also  practiced  for  the  pub- 
lic amusement;  four  dogs  being  set  at  a  bull. 
"Cock-throwing"  was  another  form  of  enjoy- 
ment. A  rooster  was  put  in  a  box  with  its  head 
protruding,  or  was  tied  fast  to  a  stick  or  rail. 
Boys  then  threw  stones  or  cudgels  at  the  poor 
prisoner,  until  It  fell  under  a  mortal  stroke. 
Or,  If  put  into  an  earthen  vessel,  the  lad  who, 
with  a  stone,  hit  the  crockery  and  smashed  It, 
carried  away  the  bird  as  his  prize. 

[42] 


FUN  AND  PLAY  IN  THE  OLD  HOME 

There  was  no  Society  for  the  Prevention  of 
Cruelty  to  Animals  in  those  days,  and  religious 
bigotry  added  to  the  sufferings  of  the  poor 
creature  with  red  comb  and  shining  tail  feathers. 
Even  the  parsons  enjoyed  this  sport,  justifying 
their  weakness  by  calling  the  cock  the  "devil's 
messenger,"  because  it  crowed  thrice  when 
Peter  denied  his  Master!  Others  beside  cleri- 
cals made  this  their  excuse  for  their  cruelty  in 
"cock-throwing." 

How  different  was  all  this,  as  seen  on  the 
Continent,  where  chanticleer  was  hailed  as  the 
herald  of  the  dawn  and  symbol  of  the  resur- 
rection, teaching  the  idea  of  the  eternal  day 
after  the  night  of  death!  Among  the  early 
Christians  the  crowing  cock  was  the  emblem  of 
vigilance.  On  the  lofty  church  spires,  in  both 
old  and  New  Netherland,  this  was  the  constant 
lesson  taught.  It  is  true  that  In  modern  days 
the  significance  of  the  chanticleer  on  the  spire, 
now  a  "weather"  cock,  has  been  popularly  for- 
gotten and  associated  with  weather  probabili- 
ties. 

Wrestling  and  archery  were  more  manly 
pastimes,  the  one  being  a  test  of  strength,  the 
other  of  skill.  With  bow,  arrow,  and  quiver 
ladies  also  found  pleasure  in  this  fine  outdoor 
exercise  with  its  social  attractions  as  well  as 

[43] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

its  physical  benefit  to  eyesight  and  muscle. 
In  1545  the  great  educator,  Roger  Ascham, 
wrote  his  famous  book  entitled  "Toxophilus" 
—  which  means  love  of  the  bow  —  and  this 
quickly  became  very  popular.  He  urged  that 
even  children  should  early  be  taught  under 
good  Instructors  how  to  handle  bows  and  ar- 
rows, so  as  not  In  later  life  to  have  to  unlearn 
bad  ways.  For  the  little  folks  a  "bird  bolt"  was 
made.  This,  being  short  and  blunt,  could  not 
do  as  much  harm  when  It  went  astray  as  If 
pointed  or  barbed.  Cupid  was  pictured  with  a 
bow  and  one  of  these  bird  bolts.  In  the  play, 
Biron  says  to  the  French  princess, 
**Thou  hast  thumped  him  with  thy  bird-bolt  arrow 
of  the  boy  Cupid." 

The  range  of  the  shaft  shot  by  a  skilled  bow- 
man was  tremendous,  the  Cornish  standard  for 
a  hit  being  480  yards.  "To  clap  the  clout"  was 
to  hit  the  white  mark  on  the  target  or  the 
"bull's-eye."  In  battle  a  flight  of  arrows  from 
the  English  archers  more  than  once  won  de- 
cisive victory.  These  skilled  targeteers  were 
considered  England's  first  line  of  offense  on 
the  battle-field,  and  the  second  for  home  de- 
fense. In  London,  In  1583,  a  procession  of 
three  thousand  of  these  bowmen  was  seen, 
many  of  them  wearing  gold  chains  on  their 

[441 


FUN  AND  PLAY  IN  THE  OLD  HOME 

necks.  The  competition  was  held  at  Smithfield, 
which  afterwards  became  a  famous  place  for 
cremating  Christians,  called  "heretics,"  by 
order  of  the  Church  authorities. 

As  long  as  poor  powder  and  the  clumsy 
and  over-heavy  cannon  made  slow  and  slight 
progress  in  efficiency,  the  bow  was  the  main 
weapon  relied  upon  by  the  British  in  war — • 
for  the  Welshmen  were  the  best  and  most 
numerous  in  the  corps  of  archers.  When  "small 
arms"  in  the  hands  of  the  Netherlanders  — 
then  the  nation,  especially  under  Maurice, 
leading  in  military  science  —  meant  "snap- 
hances,"  or  "snapcock"  guns,  a  musketeer 
could  fire  without  carrying  along  a  heavy  iron 
prong  for  a  rest.  He  could  also  take  better  aim 
and  pull  from  a  trigger,  instead  of  touching  off 
the  powder  in  the  pan  with  the  lighted  end  of 
his  six  or  eight  feet  of  rope,  or  "match." 

Gradually  the  bow  fell  into  disuse,  for  now 
the  soldier  could  be  "cock-sure"  of  hitting 
what  he  aimed  at.  The  main  reliance  in  bat- 
tle then  shifted  from  the  wooden  to  "the 
leaden  arrow,"  and  the  bow,  arquebus,  or  cross- 
bow went  out  of  army  use,  in  the  time  of 
Henry  VHL  From  this  era  on,  archery  was,  for 
the  most  part,  a  pastime  rather  than  a  war 
craft.  Then  also  the  allied  industries  of  the 

Usl 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

bow-maker,  the  fletcher  or  arrow-maker,  the 
whiffler  or  string  man,  with  the  ushers,  pages, 
and  associates,  sank  into  slight  importance. 

Other  outdoor  sports  were  hurHng,  wrestling, 
football,  quoits,  hunting,  hawking,  coursing, 
and  wild-duck  shooting.  These  made  England 
a  country,  probably  excelling  all  others,  wherein 
the  men,  dogs,  and  horses  were  well  acquainted 
with  each  other.  Going  out  at  night  with 
torches  into  the  woods,  swamps,  and  bushy 
places  and  clubbing  or  catching  birds  when 
they  were  half  blinded  by  the  glare,  was  a  very 
successful  way  of  providing  pot-pie. 

Hare  and  rabbit  hunting  furnished  fascinat- 
ing sport.  The  cunning  of  these  creatures,  in 
tlirowing  dogs  off  the  scent,  by  hiding  in  a 
flock  of  sheep,  was  often  noticed  by  writers. 
Yet  we  must  not  mix  the  conies  and  the  kings. 
It  is  remarkable  how  many  places  in  Eng- 
land are  called  after  "conies,"  as  rabbits  were 
then  called,  or  after  warrens,  or  rabbit  bur- 
rows. The  old  word  "konig,"  "koning,"  or 
"koenig,"  meaning  "king,"  was  in  sound  much 
like  that  for  "Molly  Cottontail."  Hence  one 
must  be  careful  in  deciding  upon  derivations, 
as  in  Cunningham,  Warren,  etc. 

On  visiting  Scrooby,  in  harvest  time,  I  no- 
ticed  that   the   American    reaping   machines 

[461 


FUN  AND  PLAY  IN  THE  OLD  HOME 

made  a  stubble  and  thus  quickly  laid  open  to 
the  light  the  covert  of  the  long-eared,  fluffy 
creatures,  driving  them  into  a  small  square, 
whence  they  were  more  easily  caught.  I  was 
impressed  with  their  great  numbers.  From 
very  old  days  rabbit  pie  has  been  an  autumn 
staple  on  English  dinner  tables.  Even  in  the 
time  of  Julius  Csesar  one  tribe  of  people  on  the 
Continent  was  called  "Caninefates,"  or  "rab- 
bit-catchers" or  "eaters." 

England's  favorite  saint  furnished  fun  for 
the  boys  of  Tudor  days  who  enjoyed  the  stories 
about  giants  and  dragons,  very  much  as  the 
youngsters  of  to-day  like  to  read  about  and,  in 
imagination,  in  tableaux,  and  in  play,  pose  as 
pirates,  cowboys,  stage-robbers,  Indian  killers, 
and  other  strenuous  characters.  It  was  not 
difficult  for  the  Puritan  fathers  and  mothers 
to  switch  off  the  minds  of  their  children  to  the 
wonderful  narratives  in  the  books  of  Joshua, 
Judges,  Samuel,  and  Kings,  which  contain  the 
stories  of  adventure  and  action  which  boys 
crave  so  constantly. 

"Riding  Saint  George"  was  a  play,  or  pag- 
eant, at  first  encouraged  and  then  enforced 
by  law,  in  which  the  guilds  and  soldiers  took 
part.  Even  more  of  a  fad  was  the  play  called 
"The  Holy  Martyrs  of  Saint  George."  Great 

[47] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

preparations  were  made  In  advance  for  the 
filling  of  stomachs,  as  well  as  for  the  delights 
of  the  eye.  At  such  a  season  all  the  inns  would 
overflow  with  guests  who  had  come  to  see  the 
parade  and  the  crowd.  The  living  man  chosen 
to  represent  the  dragon-killer  was  usually  a 
big,  handsome  fellow,  who  rode  on  the  best 
and  most  richly  caparisoned  horse  in  the  shire. 

The  long  and  rather  waddling  dragon  was  a 
compendium  of  ferocity  and  terribleness,  but 
most  gloriously  painted  and  gilded.  With  two 
boys  inside,  to  furnish  legs  and  motive  power, 
the  pasteboard  monster  moved,  or  swayed,  in 
more  or  less  orderly  fashion,  though  the  front 
and  hind  legs  did  not  always  keep  step.  Occa- 
sionally the  much  elongated  creature  showed 
signs  of  nervous  prostration  from  some  in- 
ternal trouble.  From  far  down  his  throat,  and 
sticking  out  a  goodly  length,  was  the  famous 
spear  of  Saint  George,  which,  thrust  in  at  the 
right  moment,  finished  the  monster. 

But  a  horrid  dragon,  without  a  lovely  maiden 
to  devour,  furnished  only  half  the  fun.  So  the 
prettiest  girl  in  the  town  was  selected  to  be  the 
rescued  princess.  Decked  out  in  tinsel,  with 
gorgeous  bodice  and  spangled  skirts,  she  was 
poised  on  a  raised  platform  fixed  on  wheels. 
Altogether,  this  "moving  mass  of  splendor" 

[48I 


FUN  AND  PLAY  IN  THE  OLD  HOME 

quite  rivaled  the  modern  circus,  whether  we 
think  of  alluring  advertisement  or  the  reality 
upon  sawdust. 

There  was  also  a  pet  lamb,  all  garlanded,  and 
with  the  traditional  Mary  as  its  keeper,  who 
was  all  blushes  and  smiles,  while  her  cheeks 
resembled  damask  roses.  Bells  and  horns  made 
the  appropriate  noises,  so  delighted  in  by  the 
small  boy,  and  formed  the  proper  appendix  to 
the  general  epidemic  of  rapture. 

Thus  it  has  come  to  pass  that  in  the  course 
of  centuries  the  English  people,  with  their 
country  customs  and  rustic  pageants,  have  de- 
veloped a  national  folk  art,  well  worthy  of 
study,  and  on  which  a  charming  volume  has 
been  written.^  Few  things  so  accurately  mirror 
the  life  of  a  people  as  their  amusements. 

1  English  Pageantry.  By  R.  Withington,  Harvard  Univer- 
sity Press.  1919.    . 


CHAPTER  V 

A  GIRL'S  LIFE  IN  MERRIE  ENGLAND 

The  girls  born  between  1590  and  1608,  who 
grew  up  to  be  the  women  in  the  Pilgrim  party, 
were,  until  their  journey  across  the  North  Sea, 
in  all  their  ideas  and  inheritances  thoroughly 
English.  Moreover,  they  were  born  and  reared 
in  the  country.  Hence  their  thoughts,  habits, 
and  association  were  rural.  Not  until  reaching 
Holland  had  most  of  them  ever  seen  a  city.  As 
mature  women,  mothers,  and  wives,  they  could 
not  lose  either  their  race  memory  or  their  own 
personal  recollections.  It  is  therefore  good  to 
inquire  into  the  background  and  atmosphere  of 
their  education  which  began  in  their  cradles. 
No  university  ever  built  can  equal  the  training 
in  the  nursery  and  home.  For  girl  or  boy  this  is 
as  relatively  rich  in  practical  values  as  that 
which  in  later  life  is  measured  in  years.  More- 
over, the  old  mother's  proverb  — •  coined  before 
the  days  of  general  scattering,  in  our  days  of 
the  American  family,  because  of  the  West,  the 
new  economics,  the  ease  of  travel,  or  the  lure  of 
Europe  or  Asia  —  was  then  impressively  true : 

**My  son's  my  son  till  he  gets  him  a  wife: 

My  daughter's  my  daughter  all  the  years  of  her  life." 

[50] 


A  GIRL  IN  MERRIE  ENGLAND 

Not  then  was  a  "spinster"  an  old  maid,  but 
usually  a  very  young  and  fresh  one,  or  even  a 
sedate  housewife.  The  modern  artist  paints 
correctly  the  Pilgrim  maiden,  who  is  wisely 
sought  in  marriage  by  a  lover  of  the  King  Lem- 
uel type  of  mind,  as  busy  at  the  wheel.  The 
young  woman  of  whom  it  could  be  said,  "  She 
seeketh  wool  and  flax  and  worketh  willingly 
with  her  hands,"  was  likely  to  be  wooed  and 
won  by  the  swain  who,  delivered  from  the  bond- 
age of  the  present,  looked  also  to  the  future. 

Beside  a  daughter's  accomplishments  in  the 
fine  arts  of  baking  and  brewing  —  so  necessary 
if  a  good  mate  was  to  be  caught  and  held  — 
and  the  daily  round  of  varied  domestic  duties 
in  house,  farm,  and  garden,  there  were  the  fun 
and  frolic  of  games  and  sports,  and  the  claims 
of  the  church  year,  with  its  festivals  and  fasts. 
There  were  also  some  things  that  came  even 
closer  to  the  business  and  heart  of  the  average 
maiden.  These  were  the  mystical  lore  and  meth- 
ods by  which,  it  was  commonly  believed,  she 
might  learn  about  her  future  husband.  As  mar- 
riageable age  approached,  these  were  by  no 
means  secondary  matters.  The  talismans  and 
secrets  of  the  art  lay  chiefly  in  the  vegetable 
kingdom,  as  we  shall  see,  and  it  was  when  Eng- 
land's hedgerows  turned  into  bouquets,  and  the 

[51] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

procession  of  the  flowers  began,  that  girls  were 
happiest. 

One  of  the  prettiest  and  most  attractive 
parterres,  or  larger  beds  devoted  to  flower  cul- 
ture, in  England,  is  the  "herb-garden."  Here 
are  grown  the  aromatic  plants  which  few 
Americans  — •  at  least  those  dwellers  in  cities  — 
ever  see,  either  cultivated  or  in  their  natural 
environment.  To  most  of  us  the  chief  place  of 
origin  of  these  plants  is  in  our  mental  associa- 
tions, as  furnished  by  the  older  poets,  especially 
Chaucer,  Shakespeare,  Milton,  or  Herrick;  and 
notably  in  "A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream." 
Here  we  distinguish  mint,  rue,  cummin,  cara- 
way, rosemary,  Saint- John's-wort,  vervain 
(verbena),  orpine,  anise,  coriander,  chicory, 
amaranthine,  love-in-idleness,  thyme,  musk- 
rose,  eglantine,  and  what  not.  To  most  of  us 
the  literary  savor  prevails  over  practical  ac- 
quaintance or  botanical  classification.  One  of 
the  most  attractive  of  the  sentimental  and  ar- 
tistic treasures  of  Central  Park  in  New  York 
is,  or  was,  the  "Shakespeare  Garden,"  opened 
in  1917,  and  containing  the  flowers,  over  two 
hundred  in  number,  blooming  perennially  In 
English  classical  poetry.  Its  originator  named 
it  "The  Garden  of  the  Heart." 

To  the  English  maidens  of  Tudor  times  some 

[52] 


A  GIRL  IN  MERRIE  ENGLAND 

of  these  plants  had  significance  and  potencies 
not  discerned  by  the  modern  male.  The  girls  of 
1600  gathered  them  to  put  under  their  pillows 
at  night,  hoping  to  conjure  up  dreams  of  their 
mate-to-be.  Especially  elect  plants  were  Saint- 
John's-wort,  vervain,  orpine,  and  rue.  A  sprig 
of  orpine,  set  the  day  before  in  clay  or  on  a  bit 
of  slate,  when  looked  at  the  next  morning  was 
prophetic;  for  according  as  the  stalk  inclined  to 
the  right  or  left,  the  maiden's  lover  would  prove 
true  or  false.  This  inquisition  of  the  future  was 
generally  made  at  the  feast  of  the  nativity  of 
John  the  Baptist,  or  Midsummer  Night's  Eve, 
on  June  24,  just  after  the  solstice.  Hence  the 
pertinency  of  the  title  of  Shakespeare's  play  of 
that  name. 

In  the  sixteenth  century  the  common  flowers 
in  the  meadows  were  violets,  daisies,  pansies, 
the  blue  and  white  milkwort;  and  on  the  hills 
the  yellow  gorse  and  pink  heather  — ■  for  Scot- 
land is  not  the  only  part  of  Britain  in  which 
these  heath  blooms  are  plentiful.  In  the  orchard 
were  pears,  mulberries,  apples  — ■  though  not 
the  splendid  big  ones  of  many  varieties  that 
make  New  York  State  a  great  orchard.  The 
garden  boundary  walls  were  of  clay,  or  mud, 
and  were  usually  thatched  on  top. 

Household  comforts  were  few.  Windows,  or 

[53  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

the  "wind-eyes"  —  tliat  is,  holes  in  tlie  house 
walls  —  were  in  most  houses  covered  with 
horn,  skin,  or  greased  paper.  When  glass  came 
into  fashion  it  was  at  first  known  only  among 
the  richer  folk  and  treated  ven,'  much  as  per- 
sonal baggage  is  with  us.  On  removal  to  an- 
other house,  it  was  the  custom  to  take  out  the 
sashes  and  carr}'  them  into  the  new  domicile. 

As  in  old  Anglo-Saxon  days  the  fireplace  was 
usually  in  the  center,  but  later  was  removed  to 
the  reredos,  or  "back,"  of  brick  or  iron.  It  was 
supposed  tliat  the  smoke  not  only  hardened  as 
well  as  blackened  the  rafters  and  woodwork, 
but  made  tlie  house  air  healthy.  For  light  there 
were  only  candles  and  oil  lamps.  For  cooking 
and  warmth  wood  or  charcoal  was  the  only 
fuel,  stone  coal  being  unknown.  When  chim- 
neys were  first  introduced  —  which  was  not 
generally  the  case  until  Queen  Elizabeth's 
time  —  old  folks  laid  the  blame  for  the  colds, 
coughs,  and  "rheums,"  which  seemed  to  be 
unusually  common,  on  these  new-fangled  in- 
ventions. Few  attributed  "colds"  to  gluttony 
and  the  attempts  of  nature  to  rid  the  human 
machiner}-  of  its  surplus  nourishment  and  the 
consequent  cleansing  of  its  clogged  conditions 
from  over-eating.  Perhaps  a  study  of  what  hap- 
pened to  the  children  of  Israel,  from  too  much 

l54l 


A  GIRL  IN  MERRIE  ENGLAND 

quail  when  eaten  for  a  whole  month,  as  told  in 
Numbers  1 1 :  20,  might  have  enlightened  them. 

Paper  for  the  walls  had  not  yet  been  intro- 
duced from  China  and  Japan,  nor  matting  for 
the  floors.  Flemish  tapestry  was  affected  by  the 
rich,  but  on  the  walls  of  the  average  house  was 
hung  the  "painted  cloth,"  of  which  we  so  often 
read  in  Shakespeare. 

If  for  the  head  to  rest  upon  at  night  a  sack 
of  chaff  took  the  place  of  the  log  of  wood  for  a 
bolster,  it  was  considered  as  great  a  luxury  as 
when  pewter  plates  came  in  to  displace  the  or- 
dinary wooden  trenchers,  or  the  larger  dishes 
of  the  same  material  called  "chargers."  "When 
houses  were  of  willow,  Englishmen  w^ere  oaken; 
when  houses  were  of  oak,  Englishmen  were 
straw,"  growled  the  old  fellows  who  did  not 
like  the  new  fashions.  "Charity  died  when 
chimneys  were  built"  was  another  growl. 

It  was  Italy  that  taught  the  use  of  the  fork. 
When  introduced  into  England,  this  eating  tool 
helped  greatly  to  improve  table  manners,  and 
one  chronicler  tells  us  that  the  novelty  meant 
"a  great  sparing  of  napkins."  Very  few  of  the 
common  people  ever  saw  white  bread,  for  the 
every-day  loaf  was  not  made  of  wheaten  flour, 
but  of  rye  or  oatmeal.  Maize  was  unknown. 
Home-made  beer  was  the  universal  drink.  For 

[55] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

each  family  three  hogsheads  for  each  person 
were  brewed. 

The  general  hour  of  rising,  when  men  got  up 
from  their  rushes  on  the  floor  and  dressed  for 
the  day's  work,  was  at  four  in  summer  and  five 
in  the  winter  mornings.  At  nine  o'clock  at 
night  the  bell  sounded  the  curfew,  as  the  signal 
to  cover  the  fires.  Soon  after  that  everybody 
was  supposed  to  be  in  bed.  The  streets  were  not 
lighted  at  night,  even  in  the  cities,  until  well 
into  the  eighteenth  century.  In  place  of  public 
illumination  those  who  were  outdoors  after  the 
curfew  hour  must  carry  a  torch,  flambeau,  or 
lantern.  Gradually  there  grew  up  in  London 
the  trade  of  the  link-boys,  who  were  paid  for 
carrying  the  torches.  Street  lighting  in  cities  is 
not  much  over  a  century  old. 

How  the  girls  and  women  of  the  sixteenth 
century  dressed  would  amuse  their  descendants 
of  to-day,  who  are  apt  to  get  totally  wrong 
ideas,  if  they  think  —  as  most  readers  of  ro- 
mances and  attendants  at  theaters  usually  do 
— ■  only  of  court  ladies,  queens,  and  princesses. 
There  were,  as  a  rule,  no  hats  or  bonnets,  no 
stockings,  and  no  laces  or  buttoned  shoes.  In 
fact,  everything  was  held  with  strings  or  straps. 
Buttons,  a  French  invention  of  later  date,  were 
not  in  common  use  until  the  eighteenth  cen- 

[S6] 


A  GIRL  IN  MERRIE  ENGLAND 

tury.  Then  they  burst  into  bloom,  like  a  May 
orchard,  or  a  hawthorn  hedgerow.  The  work- 
ing of  buttonholes  and  the  sewing-on  of  but- 
tons, were  not  then  standard  female  duties,  nor 
was  keeping  them  on  one  of  the  carking  cares  of 
one  half  of  humanity.  Ultimately  buttons  be- 
came even  more  an  article  of  decoration  than 
of  use  —  row  upon  row  having  no  buttonholes 
to  correspond.  In  a  sense,  buttons  were  a  sub- 
stitute, in  dress  equipment,  for  floral  adorn- 
ment. For  shoes,  the  buckle  and  strap  gradu- 
ally became  more  common.  For  fastening  the 
bodice  and  dress,  and  holding  up  skirts  and 
trousers,  laces,  strings,  and  belts  were  relied 
upon.  Pins,  of  a  much  larger  size  than  at  pres- 
ent, were  used  occasionally  for  dress  fastening. 
The  modern  small  pins,  with  which  we  are  so 
well  acquainted,  came  in  much  later  than  Pil- 
grim days.  The  word  "button,"  from  the 
French  word  "bouton,"  "blossom,"  in  the  next 
century,  made  a  man's  dress  a  veritable  garden 
of  metal  blooms. 

Among  ladies  of  wealth  or  rank  there  were 
various  kinds  of  headdresses,  and  the  styles  of 
wearing  the  hair  changed  often.  In  the  smaller 
towns  and  villages,  and  in  the  country,  the  fe- 
male part  of  the  population  went  bareheaded 
most  of  the  time,  or  with  a  snood,  or  close- 

I  57] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

fitting  cap,  or  kerchief  tied  on  their  heads. 
Knitted  stockings  were  not  known  or  worn  un- 
til well  into  the  seventeenth  century.  In  the 
voluminous  wardrobe  of  Queen  Elizabeth  there 
was,  it  is  said,  only  one  pair  of  stockings — • 
which  she  did  not  wear.  Nevertheless,  she  had  a 
mighty  array  of  feminine  paraphernalia.  On  one 
of  her  visits  to  an  interior  city —  a  "progress," 
it  was  called  ■ —  she  took  six  hundred  carts,  for 
there  were  no  carriages  as  yet.  These  were  nec- 
essary to  carry  the  "luggage"  of  the  court  la- 
dies and  their  swains. 

Shoes  were  made  to  pull  on,  and  they  held 
their  place  on  the  foot  much  as  leather  slippers 
do.  Buckles  came  in  fashion  later. 

Most  children  of  well-to-do  parents  received 
at  their  christening,  through  or  from  their  par- 
ents, the  present  of  a  silver  spoon,  called  an 
"apostle"  spoon,  according  as  the  baby  was 
born  on  or  near  one  of  the  days  sacred  to  one  of 
the  twelve.  The  wrought  metal  would  have  on 
the  top  a  figure  of  Saint  Peter,  John,  Matthew, 
James,  or  Andrew,  as  the  case  might  be.  Hence 
the  expression,  which  we  still  use  about  an  in- 
fant, "bom  with  a  silver  spoon  in  its  mouth." 

It  was  believed  that  fairies  of  the  unlovely 
sort  would  steal  into  the  house  at  night  and 
take  out  of  the  cradle  the  human  child  and  put 

[58] 


A  GIRL  IN  MERRIE  ENGLAND 

in  place  of  it  their  own  ugly,  deformed,  or  dis- 
eased offspring.  Such  an  infant  was  called  a 
"changeling."  In  these  early  centuries  many 
an  English  child  as  it  grew  up  was  the  victim  of 
neglect,  cruelty,  and  untold  suffering,  because 
suspected  of  being  a  fairy's  brat. 

No  doubt  the  merry  maidens  had  plenty  of 
fun  over  their  alluring  superstitions,  for  girls 
laugh  easily,  and  get  more  use  of  and  make 
more  mirth  with  their  tongues  than  do  males. 
They  have  far  more  pleasure,  too,  in  talking 
over  an  event  after  it  has  passed  than  the  lads 
or  men.  "Three  women  and  a  goose  make  a 
market"  was  a  proverb  which  mirrored  the 
truth  that  chat  and  gossip  were  deemed  as  im- 
portant as  barter  and  sale.  No  girl  or  woman 
would  miss  a  fair  if  she  could  help  it. 

In  fact,  the  market  and  the  fair  furnished  the 
greatest  of  all  stated  gatherings  for  every  class 
of  the  people.  Rare  was  the  woman  who  will- 
ingly missed  this  oasis  of  variety  in  the  midst 
of  the  otherwise  year-long  desert  of  monoto- 
nous toil.  Without  newspapers  and  with  very 
few  books,  and  with  no  popular  postal  system, 
the  tongue  took  the  place  of  telegraph  —  print 
and  pen  giving  in  those  days  vastly  more  than 
the  modern  "windy  satisfaction"  of  which  the 
cynical  poet  speaks. 

[S9] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

Other  notions  and  strictly  personal  treasures, 
more  or  less  harmless,  like  the  American  rab- 
bit's foot,  or  horse  chestnut  kept  in  one's  Inside 
pocket  —  though  likely  to  drop  out  on  inoppor- 
tune occasions  —  was  the  "coal"  in  the  black 
root  of  mugwort  to  which  was  attributed  po- 
tency in  the  popular  magic.  This  sooty-look- 
ing substance  insured  safety  against  carbuncles, 
lightning,  ague,  incendiaries,  etc.  Fern  seed  had 
the  reputed  power  of  rendering  one  as  invisible 
as  the  cloak  in  fairy  tales. 

In  fact,  the  world  was  very  populous  with 
the  little  people,  the  brownies,  nixies,  water 
sprites,  and  fairies  of  every  variety;  for  the 
forces  of  nature  were  not  yet  caught  and  har- 
nessed, and  to  every  effect  there  must  be  as- 
cribed an  antecedent  cause  —  usually  one  with 
intelligence  and  a  body  of  some  sort.  The  mon- 
sters and  dragons,  astonishing  heroes,  like  Jack 
the  Giant  Killer,  of  fame  and  power,  and  sun- 
dry nimble  princesses  who  outwitted  the  ogres, 
were  then  much  more  believed  In  than  in  our 
day.  The  classic  melodies,  later  ascribed  to 
"Mother  Goose,"  and  the  nursery  rhymes, 
jingles,  and  stories  of  horror  or  joy  that  never 
die,  though  they  travel  from  country  to  coun- 
try and  reappear  age  after  age,  were  many  and 
thrilling.  Like  the  Wandering  Jew,  or  Rip  Van 

[60] 


A  GIRL  IN  MERRIE  ENGLAND 

Winkle,  that  have  some  substance  of  fact  or  a 
real  person  in  history  behind  them,  the  ancient 
ideas  when  clothed  in  English  were  always  en- 
joyed. "Once  upon  a  time"  was  all  the  date 
needed  to  start  a  story. 

The  marriage  service,  or  "Form  for  the  Sol- 
emnization of  Matrimony,"  now  in  the  Book 
of  Common  Prayer,  is  a  composite  made  up 
from  four  local  English  sources.  It  has  appar- 
ently become,  with  novelists  and  dramatists, 
the  standard  of  all  weddings  among  English- 
speaking  peoples  all  over  the  world.  Neither 
the  injunction  of  obedience  nor  the  endowing 
with  "worldly  goods,"  however,  is  so  promi- 
nent in  most  forms  used  in  the  Free  Churches. 
As  matter  of  fact,  the  equality  of  man  and 
woman,  as  set  forth  in  Genesis  1:27,  is  bet- 
ter guaranteed  in  the  British  colonies  and  the 
daughter  nations  of  England  than  in  her  canon 
or  statute  law. 

The  sixteenth-century  English  girl,  espe- 
cially if  she  lived  in  London,  saw  an  amazing 
number  of  new  things,  all  wonderful,  intro- 
duced in  her  lifetime.  Between  15 18  and  1578 
the  catalogue  of  novelties  included  bricks,  beer 
made  from  hops,  starch,  bedsteads,  undercloth- 
ing, carp,  pippins,  apricots,  turkeys,  hops,  and 
tobacco.  Especially  for  women  were  masks, 

[61] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

busks,  muffs,  ruffs,  fans,  periwigs,  bodkins, 
woven  hosiery,  spinning  wheels,  and  many- 
more  things  Continental,  Oriental,  or  Ameri- 
can. England  ceased  to  be  only  or  chiefly  the 
land  of  raw  materials  for  export  and  took  her 
place  as  a  producing  country,  soon,  by  the  aid 
of  her  ships  and  sailors,  colonies,  and  daughter 
nations,  to  lead  the  world;  the  Pilgrims  being 
the  successful  pioneers. 


CHAPTER  VI 

PURITAN,  INDEPENDENT,  SEPARATIST 
AND  PILGRIM 

In  America,  the  story  of  the  Pilgrims  —  only 
extricated  and  made  clear  within  the  memory 
of  men  now  living  —  is  a  national  heritage.  The 
grandest  voyage  of  the  Mayflower  has  been 
made  in  our  day.  Traversing  the  oceans,  bound- 
aries, and  sections,  her  name  has  come  into 
spacious  havens  once  undreamed  of.  Well  does 
the  seal  of  the  Congregational  Club  of  Chicago 
picture  this  ship  of  promise,  with  her  sails  bent 
for  Fort  Dearborn!  In  August,  1919,  after  the 
march  through  London,  and  under  the  Stars 
and  Stripes,  of  twenty-seven  thousand  Ameri- 
can soldiers,  in  celebration  of  peace  and  vic- 
tory, the  London  "Times"  thus  made  reminder 
to  its  readers:  "The  descendants  of  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers  came  back  to  Europe  to  defend  those 
very  principles  and  liberties  for  which  Crom- 
well fought." 

Mighty  England  and  her  great  daughter  na- 
tions, knitted  together  through  inheritances, 
ideals,  and  language,  in  a  covenant  of  love  and 
mutual  help,  are  now  proud  that  the  blood  and 

[63  J 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

tongue  of  the  Separatists  were  theirs.  Crossing 
all  lines  of  demarcation,  the  Pilgrims'  bequest 
of  faith  and  courage  Is  shared  among  good  men 
and  women  of  all  names,  creeds,  and  colors, 
and  on  every  continent.  All  now  welcome  "the 
return  of  the  Mayflower,"  even  as  its  sailing 
marked  an  era  In  the  world's  history. 

We  Americans  can  speak  freely  of  things 
done  long  ago  In  England;  for  nothing,  either 
in  our  praise  or  condemnation,  can  exceed  the 
criticism  and  procedure  of  the  English  people 
themselves.  They,  like  us,  have  grown,  and 
therefore  changed.  Instead  of  autocracy  and 
the  arbitrary  methods  of  Tudor  and  Stuart 
days,  they  have.  In  orderly  evolution,  perse- 
vered In  the  establishment  of  freedom.  British 
democracy  rivals  and  In  some  respects  excels 
our  own.  Britons  have  dethroned  sovereigns, 
sent  kings  and  bishops  to  the  block,  tamed 
their  princes.  In  both  Church  and  State,  to  be 
servants,  and  established  a  noble  common- 
wealth, with  an  hereditary  head  who  Is  the  chief 
umpire  In  the  noble  game  of  politics.  Even 
now,  they  are  preparing  to  give  back  the  land 
to  the  people,  harness  the  House  of  Lords  to 
the  people's  will,  and,  besides  making  conscience 
wholly  free,  separate  Church  and  State. 

It  therefore  behooves  us  to  make  clear  the 

[64] 


PURITAN,  SEPARATIST,  PILGRIM 

reasons  why  there  were  In  succession  Conform- 
ists and  Non-Conformists,  NationaHsts  and 
State  Churchmen,  Reformers,  Puritans,  Sepa- 
ratists, and  Pilgrims.  All  who  are  not  in  the 
Anglican  Establishment  are,  in  England,  called 
"Non-Conformists,"  by  those  who  conform; 
but  by  themselves  they  are  known  as  "Free 
Churchmen." 

Although  men's  minds  change  slowly  on  the 
subject  of  faith  in  the  unseen,  yet  there  is  prog- 
ress in  religion.  It  took  ages  in  the  evolution  of 
humanity  to  separate  Church  and  State,  and  in 
religion  to  make  clear  the  difference  between 
form  and  spirit  and  to  distinguish  the  symbol 
from  the  reality. 

In  every  land  and  tongue  on  earth  religion 
makes  progress  when  it  turns  from  sacrificial 
ideas  and  symbols  and  becomes  educational. 
Then  the  plain  people  can  see  for  themselves 
what  are  the  original  records  upon  which  their 
faith  and  hope  are  based.  That  is  the  reason 
why,  in  the  three  countries  of  Great  Britain, 
the  sermon  displaced  the  mass.  To  the  glory 
and  honor  of  England's  rulers  the  Prayer-Book 
and  the  Bible  were  given  in  a  "  language  under- 
standed  of  the  people."  In  the  time  of  the  Pil- 
grims two  versions  of  the  Bible  were  put  into 
the  hands  of  the  English  people.  One,  made  at 

[65] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

Douay,  in  France,  from  the  Vulgate  Latin,  was 
a  translation  of  a  translation;  the  other,  made 
from  the  original  Greek  at  Geneva,  was  the  one 
which  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  used.  The  continu- 
ing labors  of  translation,  ever  progressing,  was 
notable  in  1611,  and  again  in  the  nineteenth 
and  twentieth  centuries,  until  the  American 
Revised  Version  of  1901  crowns  the  work. 

For  over  a  thousand  years  the  Bible  had 
been  a  book  for  the  clergy  and  the  church  cor- 
porations. The  dispersion  of  the  Greek  scholars, 
its  renderings  into  the  vernacular,  with  the 
general  use  of  the  printing  press,  made  it  the 
people's  book.  All  these  influences  combined 
to  force  the  Reformation.  Following  this,  the 
movement  for  free  churches,  governed  each  by 
the  congregation,  meant  the  march  of  democ- 
racy and  the  higher  evolution  of  the  human 
race.  Out  of  the  horde  and  flock  man  and 
woman  rose  into  a  nobler  and  higher  individ- 
uality. Or,  as  the  original  Greek  of  the  New 
Testament,  not  as  the  Latin  Vulgate,  or  as 
King  James's  version  of  John  I0:i6  has  it,  but 
as  the  Saviour  said,  "that  there  may  be  [not 
one  fold,  but]  one  flock,  one  shepherd."  The 
idea  of  the  Free  Churchmen  was  to  award  more 
honor  to  the  divine  Shepherd,  who  led  his 
sheep  which  are  not  of  one  fold,  or  in  one  en- 
[66] 


PURITAN,  SEPARATIST,  PILGRIM 

closure,  but  of  one  flock,  shepherded  by  the 
One  who  is  above  all.  The  purpose  of  the  Puri- 
tan was  to  recognize  the  Shepherd,  even  more 
than  the  particular  enclosure,  and  to  honor  the 
Master  more  than  his  ambitious  disciples.  Yet 
the  Puritans  would  keep  Church  and  State 
together.  The  Separatists,  on  the  contrary,  in- 
sisted on  keeping  conscience  and  the  rule  of 
magistrates  apart. 

The  transfer  of  emphasis  was  from  a  build- 
ing—  however  sacred,  an  edifice  of  wood, 
brick,  or  stone  —  to  the  home.  The  Puritan 
gloried  in  and  made  practice  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment doctrine  of  the  priesthood  of  believers. 
The  people  in  the  Reformed  churches  were 
more  likely  to  be  fathers  and  mothers,  with 
children  to  rear  for  God  and  society,  than  celi- 
bate monks,  nuns,  priests,  and  prelates.  The 
old  corporation  had  its  grip  on  everything  in 
human  lifcj  from  the  cradle  to  the  coffin.  The 
material  building  called  a  "church"  had  be- 
come the  fortress  and  citadel  of  priestcraft. 
Marriages,  christenings,  funerals,  confessional, 
and  worship  must  take  place  inside  its  walls. 
The  Puritan  transferred  these  functions  to  the 
home,  giving  them  there  the  preference,  and 
equal  validity  with  what  was  done  in  chantry, 
chapel,  "church,"  or  cathedral.  The  father  re- 

[67] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

sumed  his  place  as  high  priest  in  his  family.  He 
read  and  taught  his  household  out  of  the  divine 
Word,  in  their  own  living  speech  — ■  to  the  vast 
moral  improvement  of  society  at  large.  Beauti- 
ful in  its  word  and  exact  as  a  transcript  of  real- 
ity is  Robert  Burns's  picture  in  verse  of  "The 
Cotter's  Saturday  Night" — ^when  the  Puri- 
tan Sabbath  began — ■  and  Whittier's  "Flemish 
picture  of  old  days"  in  New  Hampshire,  in 
"Snow-Bound."  Nothing  in  the  literature  of 
the  old  church  can  excel  these  as  picturing  fam- 
ily life. 

The  Church  said,  "Believe  and  obey."  The 
corporation  shut  the  mouth  and  bound  the 
brain  of  thinker,  protester,  or  reformer.  To  the 
men  living  under  the  Tudors  it  was  but  a 
change  in  form,  not  in  spirit,  of  autocracy  and 
of  the  ecclesiastical  machinery  of  the  realm. 
One  pope,  even  though  English,  and  with  a 
crown  instead  of  a  tiara,  proved  to  be  no  better 
than  another,  and  one  act  of  uniformity  was  as 
crushing  and  paralyzing  as  the  other.  Happily 
for  the  freedom  of  the  human  spirit,  the  Puritan 
unquailingly  led  the  way;  the  Separatist,  the 
Baptist,  the  Quaker,  the  Methodist  consum- 
mated the  evolution,  and  liberty  became  fixed 
in  law.  The  Commonwealth,  the  Revolution  of 
1688,  the  Parliamentary  Reform  of  1830,  fol- 
[68] 


PURITAN,  SEPARATIST,  PILGRIM 

lowed  each  other  in  creating  the  spirit  and 
breaking  the  path  for  the  world-struggle  of 
1914-18,  in  which  autocracy  has  been  improved 
off  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  democracy  made 
the  law  of  humanity. 

The  Reformation  shook  the  nations  of  Eu- 
rope both  east  and  west.  Even  before  the  flight 
into  Holland  and  England  of  the  Walloons, 
Flemings,  Huguenots,  persecuted  Germans, 
and  Reformed  Spaniards  and  Italians,  there 
began  a  great  dispersion  eastward  of  English- 
men into  the  Netherlands,  Switzerland,  Ger- 
many, France,  and  Italy.  This  was  among  the 
most  noteworthy  of  the  various  emigrations 
and  scatterings  in  British  history. 

Hitherto  there  had  been  many  military  ex- 
peditions into  France.  Even  down  to  late  times 
one  of  the  titles  of  the  English  sovereign, 
which  seems  to  us  ridiculous,  was  that  of 
"King  of  France."  Yet  legal  fictions  die  hard 
and  forms  linger  after  the  life  has  died  out.  As 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  of  July  4, 
1776,  was  made  under  the  British  flag  in  In- 
dependence Hall,  so,  also,  the  Mayflower  Com- 
pact was  in  the  name  of  James  I,  one  of  whose 
titles  was  the  "King  of  France."  In  reverse  of 
this,  never  before  on  a  peaceful  mission  had  so 
many  men  of  intellect  and  station  left  England 

[69] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

as  in  Tudor  times.  These  went  as  passionate 
pilgrims  for  a  threefold  purpose  — ■  the  saving 
of  their  lives;  for  what  was  best  in  the  English 
inheritances;  and  for  fresh  knowledge;  espe- 
cially that  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  and  of  Ref- 
ormation principles. 

What  these  men  abroad,  who  studied  with 
Calvin  at  Geneva,  or  learned  from  the  Re- 
formers, either  in  Germany  or  in  the  Nether- 
lands or  in  Switzerland,  from  Luther,  Calvin, 
or  Zwinglius,  brought  back,  may  be  seen  to-day 
in  the  public  common-school  system  of  Scot- 
land, and  in  the  English  Book  of  Common 
Prayer,  which  is  in  daily  use  by  millions  who 
speak  the  tongue  in  which  its  noble  words 
are  expressed.  Nevertheless,  many  of  the  out- 
standing features,  the  shining  sentences,  and 
the  felicitous  phrases  in  the  Prayer-Book,  are 
to  be  found  In  the  older  German  manuals  of 
devotion.  Cranmer,  one  of  its  makers,  had 
studied  in  Germany  and  wedded  a  German 
wife.  Many  other  things  of  glory  and  of  beauty 
were  thus  brought  to  England;  with  Ideas,  also, 
that  no  fires,  kindled  by  the  craft  of  king, 
churchman,  or  statesman,  could  reduce  to 
ashes. 

In  the  evolution  of  the  new  life  of  England, 
those  who  thought  to  reform  the  Church  from 
[70] 


PURITAN,  SEPARATIST,  PILGRIM 

within,  but  to  keep  it  still  a  State  affair,  mixing 
together  politics  and  religion,  were  the  Puritans. 
Those  who  would  keep  these  apart,  the  affairs 
of  conscience  and  those  of  the  State,  were  called 
"Separatists,"  and  later  in  England,  "Inde- 
pendents" or  "  Congregationalists  " ;  and,  only 
within  our  own  lifetime  were  popularly  spoken 
of  as  "Pilgrims." 

So  far  as  known  the  earliest  reference  to  the 
Pilgrim  Fathers  under  that  title  is  found  in  the 
"Columbian  Centinel"  for  December  25,  1799. 
In  that  issue,  it  appeared  there  in  an  "Ode" 
by  Samuel  Davis,  which  in  the  final  stanza  has 
the  following  words:  "Hail,  Pilgrim  Fathers  of 
our  race!"  Bradford  refers  to  himself  and  his 
companions  as  pilgrims,  in  the  religious  sense, 
but  neither  he  nor  his  successors  until  1779, 
or  about  that  time,  used  the  exact  expression 
"Pilgrim  Fathers." 

England  under  "Bloody  Mary,"  who  was 
born  in  15 16  and  reigned  from  1553  to  1588, 
had  had  a  most  un-English  chapter  of  history 
and  one  that  reads  more  like  a  transcript  from 
Spanish  annals;  but  it  was  thought  Elizabeth 
would  be  more  tolerant.  Yet  this  fierce  na- 
tionalist—  "our  most  gratious  Hester,"  as 
one  of  her  admirers  called  her,  and  "Europe's 
Matchless  Mirror,"  as  another  styled  his  queen 

1 71  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

—  was  even  more  determined  upon  uniformity. 
Moreover,  she  was  goaded  on  by  the  clericals, 
who  were  smarting  under  the  stings  of  Martin 
Marprelate,  whose  cryptic  publications  —  like 
"La  Libre  Belgique,"  or  "Free  Belgium," 
during  the  German  invasion  of  Belgium  of 
1914-18 — 'had  so  marred  their  reputation. 
The  sleuth  hounds  of  the  law  now  lay  in  wait 
for  the  Separatists,  who  were  leaders  of  the 
"conventicles,"  as  "the  law" — ^ which  was 
chiefly  the  sovereign's  will  —  called  them.  All 
Christians  who  held  to  the  simple,  original 
church  polity  of  the  first  disciples  of  Jesus, 
were  outlawed.  Nevertheless,  the  number  kept 
on  increasing  of  those  who,  after  reading  care- 
fully the  New  Testament,  felt  that  their  su- 
preme loyalty  was  to  their  great  Captain,  Jesus, 
founder  of  the  Christian  Church.  These  gath- 
ered in  private  houses  to  hear  the  Gospel  mes- 
sage. They  assembled  in  the  remote  gravel  pits 
at  Islington,  at  times  on  the  very  spot  where 
the  martyrs  were  burned  under  Queen  Mary. 
They  were  found  in  the  different  villages  that 
now  are  swallowed  up  in  the  great  metropolis. 
Many  of  these  plain  people,  on  their  way  to 
Sabbath  worship,  looked  up  at  Temple  Bar  — 
now  in  the  heart  of  throbbing  London  —  and 
saw  human  heads  hanging,  fresh  and  bleeding, 

[72] 


PURITAN,  SEPARATIST,  PILGRIM 

or  old,  rotting  human  flesh.  Hungry  dogs  were 
gathered  to  await  a  feast  should  the  carrion 
tumble  from  its  hooks.  What  in  our  day  we 
have  known  as  an  architectural  relic  was  once 
a  shambles.  Though  these  inquirers  after  truth 
realized  what  would  be  their  fate  and  that  of 
their  leaders,  they  moved  on  as  bravely  as  ever 
soldier  charged  in  battle.  They  would  not  go 
into  the  great  cathedrals  or  parish  "  churches," 
but  wended  their  way  to  their  secret  "meeting- 
houses"—  often  to  "God's  first  temples,"  the 
groves,  or  to  the  gravel  pits  outdoors  — •  there 
to  commune  with  the  Eternal  Father.  They 
sought  fulfillment  of  the  glorious  promise  that 
where  two  or  three  were  gathered  together  in 
the  name  that  is  above  every  name,  they  would 
find  their  Friend  there.  The  ash-heaps  of  the 
martyrs  have  proved  to  be  good  foundations 
for  many  of  the  noble  edifices  of  the  Free 
Churchmen  of  to-day. 

From  such  secret  conventicles  in  London 
the  leaders,  with  the  rank  and  file,  were  seized 
and  dragged  to  prison,  even  as  in  the  perse- 
cuting days  of  Saul  of  Tarsus.  I  witnessed  the 
same  procedure  in  government  in  old  Japan, 
where  a  like  fate  awaited  all  non-conformists, 
and  where  the  heads  of  decapitated  criminals 
were  stuck  on  poles.  Both  rulers,  European  and 

[73] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

Asiatic,  thought  they  were  doing  Heaven  serv- 
ice. 

The  men  who  separated  Church  and  State, 
and  conscience  from  politics,  were  called  "  Sep- 
aratists," just  as  Abraham,  Ezra,  Paul,  and 
others  who  have  advanced  the  human  race 
were  called  in  their  times.  Yet  from  what  did 
the  people,  who  were  later  called  "Pilgrims," 
separate.^  They  detached  themselves  from  big- 
otry, intolerance,  despotism,  and  the  narrow- 
ness of  formalism.  This  they  did  in  order  to 
fulfill  the  higher  ideals  of  loyalty  to  Jesus  and 
obedience  to  God.  They  held  their  spirits  to 
still  loftier  account.  They  were  God-iilled  and 
God-driven  men.  They  were  willing  to  test 
their  ideals.  They  chose  affliction,  poverty,  and 
exile,  rather  than  ease  and  comfort  in  con- 
formity. To-day  the  world  honors  the  men 
who  took  action  and  lived  in  accordance  with 
principles  that  are  unchangeable  and  eternal. 

There  are  arguments  —  not  a  few  —  in  favor 
of  a  national  church  that  should  include  every 
one;  and  these  are  ably  and  winsomely  pre- 
sented in  English  poetry,  fiction,  essay,  drama, 
and  picture  play,  as  well  as  in  polemics  and 
argument,  by  able  men  and  women  of  deep 
convictions.  Even  Non-Conformist  writings 
and  classics,  like  Bunyan's  "Pilgrim's  Prog- 

[74] 


PURITAN,  SEPARATIST,  PILGRIM 

ress,"  have  been  "medicated"  by  Anglicans. 
Some  passages  on  this  theme  of  a  national 
church  in  De  Quincey's  writings  are  classic.  In 
America,  however,  and  in  a  true  democracy, 
these  lose  most  if  not  all  of  their  force;  for 
with  us  such  names  as  "Non-Conformist,"  "  Sep- 
aratist," "Independent,"  have  little  or  no 
meaning.  We  are  devoutly  thankful  to  those 
prophets  of  spiritual  freedom,  Roger  Williams, 
William  Penn,  and  Thomas  Jefferson  —  all  of 
Welsh  stock  —  and  the  fathers  of  the  Republic 
who,  in  civic  life,  at  least,  made  religion  a  mat- 
ter of  conscience  and  conviction,  but  not  of 
political  interference. 


CHAPTER  VII 
MIDDELBURG:  THE  LONE  STAR  OF  FREEDOM 

In  the  story  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  of  Free 
Churchmen,  and  of  the  evolution  of  the  United 
States  of  America,  other  places  seem  as  planets, 
while  Middelburg  shines  as  a  star.  Here,  first 
in  Europe,  the  voice  of  spiritual  freedom  was 
heard  from  a  magistrate.  Here  began  the 
divorce  of  religion  from  politics.  Here  ended 
the  unholy  alliance  of  Caiaphas  and  Pilate. 
Here  began  the  literary  history  of  the  Free 
Churchmen,  Separatists,  and  Pilgrims.  All 
Americans  who  read  their  nation's  history  — 
not  an  "official"  report,  as  written  by  a  sect, 
a  section,  or  a  race,  but  discerned  from  all  the 
known  facts  in  the  case  —  will  be  able  to  see 
this. 

It  is  very  hard  for  us  to  get  into  the  mind 
of  the  sixteenth  century.  Then  the  idea  of  re- 
ligious liberty  was  unknown  to  governments 
or  rulers  of  either  states  or  churches.  It  formed 
no  part  of  their  ideal  or  programme,  nor  ever 
entered  the  official  mind.  The  mediaeval  idea 
of  the  State  Church  dominated  all  society  and 
politics.  It  was  taught  that  there  could  be  no 

[76] 


MIDDELBURG 

separation  between  the  secular  and  the  spirit- 
ual allegiance  of  a  man.  Any  difference  of 
opinion,  therefore,  or  freedom  of  mind  in  re- 
ligion, or  attempt  to  form  a  new  denomina- 
tion of  Christians,  was  treated  as  treason  and 
rebellion,  to  be  put  down  by  fire  and  sword. 
A  heretic  was  not  looked  upon  as  a  person  mis- 
taken in  his  ideas,  but  as  a  felon  and  no  better 
than  a  murderer. 

The  Latin  idea  and  motto,  cujus  regio,  ejus 
religio  ("  whose  is  the  region,  his  is  the  religion  ") 
ruled  all  Europe.  The  Prince  was  expected,  not 
only  to  govern  the  people,  but  also  to  rule  their 
consciences.  The  magistrate  decided  what,  and 
only  what,  his  subjects  should  think,  in  mat- 
ters of  faith.  The  Peace  of  Augsburg,  in  1530, 
was  settled  and  signed  for  this  purpose  • —  not 
whether  a  state  should  or  should  not  give 
freedom  of  conscience,  but  that  every  subject 
must  be  either  Catholic  or  Protestant.  In  like 
manner,  in  Russia,  under  the  early  czars,  one 
must  be  either  a  Hebrew  or  a  Christian.  In  a 
word,  much  the  same  ideas  held  by  the  Tartar, 
the  Turk,  and  the  Yedo  despotism  ruled  in 
Europe.  Catholic,  Calvinist,  Puritan,  Lutheran 
—  all  were  "tarred  with  the  same  brush." 
None  was  tolerant.  In  that  age  they  held  sen- 
timents abhorrent  to  the  Constitution  of  the 

[771 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

United  States,  and  which  are  now  held,  as  a 
rule,  only  by  savage  tribes  or  despotic  govern- 
ments. The  less  civilized,  the  more  do  despots 
claim  divine  partnership,  monopoly,  and  guid- 
ance. It  is  foolish,  therefore,  and  marks  rather 
the  uneducated  person,  to  stigmatize  the  pope, 
or  Calvin,  or  Luther,  or  Elizabeth,  or  Philip  II, 
as  common  murderers.  On  the  contrary,  these 
rulers  were  highly  conscientious  persons.  They 
were  all  the  more  dangerous  to  liberty  because 
so  honest  and  so  deluded.  A  bigot  is  intellec- 
tually a  mule;  that  is,  the  affectionate  offspring 
of  ignorance  and  obstinacy. 

Yet,  like  the  upspringing  light  in  the  eastern 
sky,  there  appeared  in  this  blackness  of  dark- 
ness men  of  vision,  to  whom  American  and  the 
world's  freedom  owes  much. 

In  Switzerland  arose  the  people  who  called 
themselves  "Brethren,"  but  whom  their  ene- 
mies nicknamed  the  "Anabaptists,"  or  " Re- 
bap  tizers";  because  they  did  not  accept  the 
rite  of  either  the  Roman  Catholic  or  the  State 
Churches.  They  took  the  New  Testament  lit- 
erally and  Jesus  seriously;  and  they  put  in 
practice  ideas  that  are  now  as  ab  cm  our  coun- 
try. These  people  were  not  free  from  the  usual 
weaknesses  of  human  nature.  They  found  that 
perfect  government,  in  State  or  Church,  can  no 

1 78] 


MIDDELBURG 

more  be  expected  than  can  a  true  republic,  like 
a  mushroom  out  of  a  dead  log,  spring  up  over- 
night. 

In  the  Swiss  Republic,  Zwinglius  (1484- 
153 1),  declaring  himself  free  of  papal  control, 
began,  in  15 16,  to  preach  the  good  news  of 
God.  He  held  that  neither  pope  nor  church  nor 
council  was  necessary  to  make  the  Scriptures 
plain,  but  only  the  Holy  Spirit.  He  expounded 
the  Reformed,  as  distinct  from  the  Lutheran, 
or  Romanist,  interpretation  of  Christianity.  In 
his  view  the  congregation,  and  not  the  hier- 
archy, was  the  true  representative  of  the 
church.  Zwinglius  was  a  strong  believer  in  rep- 
resentative government  and  in  a  democracy. 

By  1 521  the  Anabaptists  were  active.  Thou- 
sands of  them,  driven  out  of  middle  Europe, 
overflowed  into  other  countries,  only  to  be 
put  down  by  military  force,  in  blood  and  fire, 
as  anarchists;  for  rare  indeed  was  the  ruler  who 
could  catch  even  a  gleam  of  the  idea,  now  so 
common,  that  conscience  should  be  free.  In  the 
main,  the  Anabaptists  were  only  forerunners 
of  the  Pilgrims  and  of  the  Americans  of  1789; 
for  they  held  to  the  principles  which  are  em- 
bodied in  that  immortal  document,  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States. 

The  first  clear  public  exposition  in  English 

[79] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

of  Separatist  or  Congregational  principles — • 
tliat  is,  of  the  Idea  of  "a  free  church  In  a  free 
state" — 'Was  printed  and  published  at  Mld- 
delburg  In  Zeeland,  Here  was  the  first  un- 
persecuted  church,  the  initial  literary  cradle  of 
independency,  and  the  birthplace  of  spiritual 
freedom. 

It  was  at  Middelburg  that  the  first  voice  of  a 
ruler  spoke  for  full  freedom  of  conscience.  Like 
an  unheralded  star  of  the  first  magnitude,  there 
suddenly  appeared  above  the  horizon  of  Europe 
the  harbinger  of  a  new  day  whose  light  was  to 
spread  over  all  the  world.  William  of  Orange- 
Nassau  (called,  after  his  death,  William  the 
Silent)  stopped  the  persecution  of  men  for 
conscience'  sake  and  rebuked  their  persecu- 
tors. This  he  did  In  the  face  of  friends  who 
turned  against  him  for  his  liberality  In  matters 
of  religion.  His  charity  they  condemned  as  sin 
against  God. 

The  case  was  this.  The  thoroughly  honest 
city  magistrates,  with  consciences  educated  in 
the  medieval  way,  were  oppressing  the  Ana- 
baptists. When  William  heard  of  it,  he  wrote, 
under  date  of  1577,  and  in  these  words  laid 
the  foundation  of  both  the  Dutch  and  the 
American  Republics,  giving  humanity  a  new 
charter: 

[80] 


MIDDELBURG 

"We  declare  unto  you  that  you  have  no  right 
to  interfere  with  the  conscience  of  any  one,  so 
long  as  he  has  done  nothing  that  works  injury 
to  another,  or  a  public  scandal." 

What  is  the  life-story  of  this  pioneer  of  spirit- 
ual freedom  whom  the  Dutch  called  the  "Fa- 
ther of  his  Country"? 

William  the  Silent  was  born  In  a  family 
reared  under  the  Roman  obedience.  As  a  child 
he  became  a  Lutheran  when  his  parents  did. 
In  mature  life  and  out  of  deep  personal  convic- 
tion he  adopted,  for  the  outward  form  of  his 
spiritual  discipline,  the  doctrine  and  church  or- 
der taught  by  Calvin.  Yet  never,  either  as  a 
private  individual  or  as  a  ruler,  did  he  believe 
in  or  practice  either  what  those  did,  who  In 
England  drove  out  Non-Conformists;  or  In 
Germany  approved  of  putting  down  the  peas- 
ant uprising  by  armed  force;  or  In  Spain  gloried 
In  the  burning  of  heretics  —  which  even  Calvin 
In  a  single  Instance  allowed. 

In  fact,  It  was  the  puzzle  of  William's  life  to 
learn  why  real  Christians  should  want  to  injure 
each  other  for  opinion's  sake.  Christianity  was 
to  him  life,  not  theory  or  dogma ;  It  was  applied 
righteousness  and  the  spirit  of  Christ  In  daily 
life.  In  the  free  working  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  he 
was  a  hearty  believer.  He  abhorred  and  resisted 
[8i  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

the  enforcement  of  church  rules  or  doctrines  by 
poHtical  or  miHtary  force.  He  would  "make  no 
law  establishing  religion  or  prohibiting  the  free 
exercise  thereof." 

In  this  school  of  thought  and  practice  John 
Robinson,  William  Bradford,  Roger  Williams, 
William  Penn,  Thomas  Jefferson,  and  Abraham 
Lincoln  were  pupils.  The  first  amendment  to 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  is  but  a 
commentary  on  the  ideas  of  William  of  Orange 
of  1577. 

The  Englishman  who  wrote  and  printed  at 
Middelburg,  in  the  land  where  printing  and  re- 
ligion were  free,  the  first  Congregational  tract 
was  Robert  Browne  (1556-163 3).  He  had  been 
a  minister  in  the  State  Episcopal  Church  at 
Norwich,  a  city  in  which  were  hundreds  of 
Dutch  Anabaptists.  Here  during  Queen  Mary's 
reign  firewood  actually  had  once  grown  scarce 
and  so  high-priced  as  to  work  discomfort  to  the 
poor,  because  of  the  burning  of  men  called  here- 
tics. In  1579,  the  year  when  the  Dutch  United 
States  was  formed,  Browne  championed  the 
cause  of  these  and  other  Separatists  and  went 
over  to  Middelburg — not  "Middleberg"  as 
many  writers  have  it.  Not  satisfied  with  the 
Puritan  Cartwright's  ideas  about  reformation, 
Browne  formed  a  church  —  not  a  building,  but 

[  82  ] 


MIDDELBURG 

a  congregation  —  of  Christians.  These  bound 
themselves  together  by  the  sort  of  a  covenant 
which  is  still  the  heart  and  soul  of  a  true  Con- 
gregational church,  and  of  which  the  compact 
at  Cape  Cod  in  1620  was  but  a  logical  develop- 
ment. In  the  year  following  the  Dutch  Declara- 
tion of  Independence,  in  1581,  Browne  Issued 
his  famous  work,  "A  Treatise  of  Reformation, 
without  Tarrying  for  Any."  In  this  book  he  ad- 
vocated separation  from  the  political  churches; 
or,  in  other  words,  a  free  Church  in  a  free  State 
—  the  principle  established  in  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  and  in  every  one  of  Great 
Britain's  colonies;  that  is,  by  three  fourths  of  all 
English-speaking  people.  In  this  work  one  may 
find  the  foundation  ideas  and  principles  of  the 
Congregational  churches  of  to-day. 

This  tract  and  Browne's  other  writings  were 
circulated  in  England,  but  the  colporteurs  were 
promptly  hanged  as  felons.  Browne  was  the 
first  champion  of  the  Congregational  idea,  even 
though  those  who  later  in  substance  adopted 
his  principles,  including  Robinson  and  the  Pil- 
grim Fathers,  did  not  care  to  be  called  "Brown- 
ists"  or  to  take  their  name  after  any  man.  They 
were  loyal  Englishmen  in  politics,  but  in  spirit- 
ual matters  they  owned  allegiance  only  to  Jesus 
Christ.  For  many  years,  however,  the  Puritans 
[83  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

of  Massachusetts  persisted  in  calling  the  Ply- 
mouth people  by  this  name — "Brownists." 
The  local  struggle  between  Pilgrims  and  Purl- 
tans  was  much  the  same  as  in  New  York  be- 
tween the  people  and  their  English  governors, 
of  democracy  and  aristocracy. 

Yet  who  in  this  world  lives  up  to  the  full 
measure  of  his  ideals?  What  company  of  mor- 
tals do  exactly  as  they  say,  or  preach  what  they 
practice,  or,  after  only  a  few  months'  training, 
succeed  in  doing  the  will  of  God  on  earth  as  it 
is  done  In  Heaven  ?  Browne's  church  broke  up 
within  two  years. 

The  original  editions  of  Browne's  books, 
printed  at  Middelburg,  are  to-day  worth  their 
weight,  possibly,  in  diamonds.  Only  a  very  few 
copies  have  survived  fire,  the  hangman,  the 
gallows,  and  the  lapse  of  years.  "Towering  o'er 
the  wrecks  of  time"  they  shine  as  lighthouses 
on  the  pathway  of  the  free  peoples  and  the 
American  Commonwealth. 

How  close  the  connection  of  Browne  and  the 
Middelburg  pastors  was  with  the  people  we  call 
the  Pilgrims,  may  be  a  question  for  scholars; 
but  William  Bradford,  when  in  1606  "tossed 
with  tempest,  afflicted  and  not  comforted," 
landed  at  Middelburg,  he  had  an  experience 
with  Dutch  freedom,  law,  and  justice  which 

[84] 


MIDDELBURG 

gave  him  a  respect  for  the  usages  of  this  repub- 
Hcan  people  which,  throughout  his  long  life,  he 
never  lost.  A  busy-body,  mischief-maker,  and 
tell-tale  fellow  passenger  had  informed  on  him 
to  the  magistrates,  as  "having  fled  out  of  Eng- 
land." Dutch  justice,  represented  by  the  Schout 
—  predecessor  of  our  American  district  attor- 
ney —  at  once  made  examination  and  set  him 
free. 

What  a  long  procession,  in  American  history, 
westward,  in  forest,  frontier,  and  prairie,  does 
this  Dutch  word,  Englished  as  "scout,"  con- 
note, from  Lake  George  to  California,  and  from 
wood  ranger  to  the  Boy  Scouts ! 

In  Middelburg,  Janssen  invented  the  tele- 
scope which  Galileo  used  and  who  won  the 
greater  fame,  besides  being  entangled  in  the 
"Conflict  Between  Science  and  Dogmatic 
Theology"  —  as  my  friend  and  neighbor.  Presi- 
dent A.  D.White,  of  Cornell  University,  entitled 
his  book  — ■  which  attacks  no  creed,  propagates 
none,  but  nourishes  religion.  The  rough  tin  pipe 
with  which  Janssen  explored  the  heavens  con- 
trasts amazingly  with  the  splendid  apparatus 
and  equipment  of  some  modern  throne  rooms 
of  astronomy,  such  as  the  Naval  Observatory 
at  Washington,  or  the  observatory  at  Flagstaff 
in  Arizona  or  at  Mount  Hamilton  in  Califor- 

[85] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

nia.  In  like  manner,  William  of  Orange  and 
Robert  Browne,  in  the  same  city,  were  fellow 
heralds  of  the  new  day.  They  swept  the  spirit- 
ual heavens  with  their  gaze,  and  the  means  and 
equipment  of  both  suggest  the  same  contrasts 
with  the  results  of  to-day  as  in  science,  both 
real  and  so-called. 

Not  to  be  forgotten,  as  Browne's  fellow  stu- 
dent at  Cambridge  and  his  bosom  friend  at 
Norwich,  was  Robert  Harrison,  also  a  man  of 
light  and  leading  among  the  Separatists. 

Many  times  have  we  visited  and  rambled 
around  Middelburg  and  Veer,  reverently  exam- 
ining the  Scotch  Church  records,  or  meditating 
in  the  clean,  little  Fish  Market,  overlooking 
what  was  Browne's  press  and  place  of  worship, 
and  in  the  glorious  Town  Hall,  where  William 
Bradford  stood.  From  this  city,  as  from  a  foun- 
tain, flowed  influences  that  have  shaped  democ- 
racy and  American  history. 

Most  pleasant  of  all  occasions  was  the  visit 
of  the  author  (an  American  member,  also,  of 
the  Zeeland  Society  of  Sciences)  on  September 
21,  1913.  Then,  in  the  Scotch  Church — ^  an- 
ciently a  convent  chapel  —  before  the  burgo- 
master, the  local  magnates,  and  an  audience  of 
Netherlanders,  who  spoke  or  taught  English, 
we  stood  in  the  quaint  pulpit  and  unveiled  a 
[86] 


MIDDELBURG 

memorial  tablet,  which,  with  inscription  and 
symbols,  tells  its  own  story. 

The  charter  of  liberties,  of  1253,  in  the  ver- 
nacular, William  the  Silent,  Robert  Browne, 
Janssen,  Cartwright,  Harrison,  all  starry  names! 
What  a  glorious  record  for  Middelburg! 


CHAPTER  VIII 
MARTYRS  FOR  A  FREE  CHURCH 

In  the  history  of  the  Free  Churches  of  England, 
the  prophecy  concerning  the  first  Christian 
witness-bearers,  as  described  In  the  Revelation 
of  Saint  John,  was  grandly  fulfilled  —  "The 
testimony  of  Jesus  is  the  spirit  of  prophecy." 
Not  only  did  these  martyrs  in  Tudor  times 
awaken  the  conscience  of  England,  but  they 
made  more  converts  to  the  Idea  that  religion 
should  be  free.  To-day,  that  body  of  Chris- 
tians In  England  which  holds  to  the  principles 
for  which  either  the  Puritan  or  the  Separatist 
martyrs  died  — •  the  Congregational  —  Is  second 
only  to  the  State  Church  in  numbers,  wealth, 
power,  influence,  and  missionary  and  philan- 
thropic activities. 

Like  the  mother  and  her  seven  sons,  men- 
tioned in  the  second  book  of  Maccabees,  11:7, 
and  made  arguments  for  faith  and  endurance 
in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  the  pioneers  in 
England  —  of  their  faith  and  ours  —  "were 
tortured,  not  accepting  deliverance,  that  they 
might  obtain  a  better  resurrection."  Between 
the  slow  rot  of  filthy  prisons,  or  the  gallows,  or 
[88] 


MARTYRS  FOR  A  FREE  CHURCH 

exile,  there  was  little  to  choose.  These  people 
were  executed  or  imprisoned,  often  to  death, 
because  they  were  Separatists,  and  they  ac- 
cepted the  loss  of  their  goods  and  bodies  rather 
than  deny  their  faith. 

The  first  martyrs  in  a  cause  are,  or  ought  to 
be,  best  remembered.  William  Dennis,  of  Thet- 
ford,  was  the  file  leader  of  a  glorious  procession 
of  those  who  gave  up  their  lives  for  liberty  of 
conscience.  Ellas  Thacker  followed  him  on  the 
gallows.  Both  were  bookbinders  of  the  sheets 
printed  at  Middelburg. 

More  famous  than  these  was  John  Penry,  the 
Welshman,  publisher  of  the  Marprelate  Tracts. 
He  was  the  initial  "Pilgrim  Father."  It  was  he 
who,  first  of  all,  advised  his  fellow  Free  Church- 
men to  leave  intolerant,  Tudor  England  to  be- 
come "pilgrims  and  strangers  in  the  earth."  He 
dropped  the  seed  which  ripened  Into  the  May- 
flower venture  and  the  Pilgrim  Republic  in 
America.  We  shall  look  at  his  name  and  per- 
sonality, but  first  glance  at  his  fellow  martyrs, 
Barrowe  and  Greenwood,  who  were  hanged  for 
being  Free  Churchmen. 

The  Separatists,  or  Free  Churchmen,  were 
called  "Barrowlsts"  as  well  as  "Brownists," 
for  what  reason  we  shall  see. 

John  Greenwood  was,  from  1577  to  1578,  a 

[89] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

student  of  Corpus  Chrlsti  College  in  Cam- 
bridge, from  which  Robert  Browne  had  gradu- 
ated. He  became  first  a  Puritan  and  then  a 
Separatist,  and  in  1586  was  arrested  and  thrown 
into  prison.  There  he  was  visited  by  Barrowe, 
an  old  friend,  probably  a  college  chum.  The 
prison  keeper  at  once  seized  Barrowe  and  hur- 
ried him  in  a  boat  down  the  river  to  the  arch- 
bishop at  Lambeth.  The  two  prisoners  had  sev- 
eral trials  and  inquisitions,  but  their  minds 
remained  unchanged.  On  the  contrary,  they  kept 
their  pens  busy.  Barrowe's  idea  of  church  polity 
was  rather  on  the  Presbyterian  model,  which 
gives  the  power,  not  directly  to  the  people,  the 
members  of  the  church,  but  to  the  elders.  His 
preeminence  and  the  early  date  of  his  arrest  and 
writings  soon  made  the  name  "Barrowists" 
current. 

Despite  all  difficulties  —  much  like  those 
with  which  the  radical  gospeler,  whose  auto- 
graph was  "Paul  the  prisoner  of  Jesus  Christ," 
was  surrounded,  when  Phoebe  of  Cenchrese  from 
Corinth  "carried  under  her  girdle  to  Rome  the 
whole  future  of  Christian  theology"  —  the  ap- 
peals to  posterity  went  on.  The  Separatists  had 
more  faith  in  humanity  at  large  than  in  office- 
holders. Types,  printer's  ink,  and  Dutch  presses 
kept  up  that  battle  of  freedom  which,  "though 
[90] 


MARTYRS  FOR  A  FREE  CHURCH 

baffled  oft,  is  ever  won."  In  spite  of  the  slander 
and  hate  of  the  pohtical  bishops,  the  truth  was 
dispersed  abroad.  Not  only  tracts,  but  bound 
volumes  in  quarto  appeared.  They  concerned 
"certain  conferences  had  in  the  Fleete,  accord- 
ing to  the  Bishops  bloody  mandate,  with  two 
prisoners  there,"  and  they  advocated  "such  a 
true  church  as  has  separated  itself  from  the  un- 
godly by  a  covenanting  together  of  believers." 
These  were  written  on  bits  of  paper,  smuggled 
out  of  prison  and  sent  across  seas  to  Dordrecht, 
and  printed  by  Dutch  compositors  and  press- 
men. As  there  was  no  chance  for  the  author's 
revision,  comparison,  or  proof-reading,  the  won- 
der is  that  they  were  so  well  done  or  that  any 
survived. 

The  deep  gulf  of  difference  between  the  State 
and  Free  Churchmen  is  discerned  in  this,  that 
the  hierarchy  looked  with  a  fear,  that  was  ulti- 
mately impotent,  upon  the  people;  declaring 
that  they  "are  too  blind,  seditious,  and  head- 
strong to  make  it  safe  to  trust  them."  In  re- 
verse, the  Separatists  put  confidence  in  common 
folk,  when  these  humbly  sought  the  aid  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  and  were  loyal  to  their  Master  and 
to  the  constitution  of  the  primitive  Church. 
Barrowe  insisted  that  the  queen  had  no  right 
to  make  other  laws  than  Christ  hath  made  and 

[91] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

left  In  his  Testament  for  the  government  of  his 
Church. 

Long  after  this,  a  statesman,  named  WIlHam 
E.  Gladstone,  defined  the  Issue  between  two 
poHtlcal  parties  as  "trust  In  the  people,  tem- 
pered by  prudence,"  and  "distrust  of  the 
people,  tempered  by  fear."  The  question  in  the 
sixteenth  and  that  In  the  twentieth  century 
were  much  the  same.  Most  Americans  persist 
In  discriminating  the  England  of  landlordism, 
Toryism,  and  of  feudalism,  entrenched  in  the 
Anglican  establishment,  and  the  England  of 
the  people,  which  Is  best  interpreted  In  the 
daughter  nations,  which  will  have  neither  state 
church  nor  nobility. 

At  last,  after  urging  the  trumped-up  charge 
that  the  Free  Churchmen  were  In  league  with 
the  Spaniards  to  assist  In  an  invasion  of  Eng- 
land, and  after  thwarting  the  will  and  vote 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  which  had  vetoed 
the  bishops'  hasty  legislation,  the  two  victims 
were  hurried  to  execution.  On  April  6,  as  early 
and  as  secretly  as  they  well  could  in  such  case, 
the  bishops  carried  out  their  murderous  pur- 
pose. 

The  victims  were  carted  to  the  gallows  and 
two  aged  widows  carried  their  winding  sheets 
for  decent  robing  at  tlie  burial.  Let  us  hope, 

[92] 


MARTYRS  FOR  A  FREE  CHURCH 

even  if  it  be  against  hope  and  In  the  face  of  the 
execution  of  Penry,  that  the  story  told  by  John 
Cotton,  in  his  "Answer  to  Roger  WiUiams," 
that  the  queen  was  displeased  when  she  heard 
of  what  had  been  done,  is  true.  Thus  perished 
the  martyrs  who  died  for  soul  freedom. 

Yet  nearly  three  centuries  were  to  elapse  be- 
fore a  Jew  was  enfranchised  in  England  — ■  the 
bishops  ever  opposing. 

The  next  victim  of  prelacy  was  John  Penry. 
Let  us  see  how  he  got  his  name. 

As  in  Wales  and  the  Cymric  settlements  in 
the  United  States — 'notably  in  the  Welsh 
barony  in  Pennsylvania,  and  around  Utica, 
New  York — 'the  prefix  "ap"  meaning  "son 
of,"  was  sooner  or  later  joined  to  the  family 
name.  The  Ap  Howells  became  Powells,  and 
many  other  similar  changes  are  noted  by  gene- 
alogists. So  "John  ap  Henry,"  born  at  Ofu- 
brith  in  Brecknockshire,  in  1559,  became 
"John  Penry."  He  studied  at  Cambridge,  ma- 
triculating at  Peterhouse,  December  3,  1580, 
and  was  probably  a  chum  with  Greenwood.  He 
soon,  by  conviction,  became  a  Puritan.  He  re- 
ceived his  degree  of  A.B.,  and  on  July  11,  1586, 
entered  as  a  commoner  at  Saint  Alban's  Hall, 
Oxford.  Later  he  took  holy  orders,  preaching 
at  both  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  and  was  noted 

[93] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

as  an  edifying  preacher.  Eager  to  have  a  vigor- 
ous gospel  dispensed  in  his  native  speech  and 
land,  he  printed  at  Oxford  in  1587  a  book  to 
that  effect.  For  his  exposure  of  reaHties  in  his 
book  in  favor  of  Wales,  he  was  censured. 

During  this  time  and,  indeed,  while  publish- 
ing the  Marprelate  Tracts,  and  even  until  his 
return  from  Scotland,  he  was  a  Puritan,  for  he 
believed  that  preachers  should  be  sent  out  by 
the  prelates  and  receive  their  stipends  from  the 
State.  The  Separatists  would  repudiate  one 
who  held  to  this  idea  of  the  union  of  Church 
and  State,  but  when  in  London,  with  the  Free 
Churchmen,  Penry  became  a  Separatist. 

When  out  of  jail  he  married  Helen  Godly,  of 
Northampton.  It  was  from  her  birthplace  came 
the  people  who  settled  in  western  Massachu- 
setts, and  thence  went  forth  into  northern  New 
York,  and  named  their  town  after  Pulaski,  the 
noble  Pole  who  helped  us  in  our  struggle  for 
freedom. 

After  publishing,  in  1587,  the  Martin  Mar- 
prelate  Tracts,  Penry  fled  into  the  land  of  John 
Knox,  still  keeping  his  pen  busy  for  the  spread 
of  the  truth  as  he  saw  it.  That  truth  is  what  we 
all  sing  to-day — "The  church's  one  founda- 
tion is  Jesus  Christ  the  Lord."  He  returned  to 
London  in  1592,  again  becoming  active  with  the 

[94] 


MARTYRS  FOR  A  FREE  CHURCH 

Free  Churchmen.  Seized  and  haled  to  the  Poul- 
try Prison,  he  was  kept  on  bread  and  liquids; 
nor,  though  in  poor  health,  was  he  allowed  to 
have  the  nourishing  food  his  wife  would  bring 
him. 

On  the  loth  of  April  Penry  was  brought 
before  the  inquisition.  Popular  feeling  having 
been  aroused  by  the  judicial  murder  of  Barrowe 
and  Greenwood,  the  magistrates  had  to  move 
carefully.  Nothing  overt  could  be  alleged 
against  Penry  until  they  found  some  private 
memorials  of  a  petition  he  intended  to  com- 
plete and  send  to  the  queen.  Because  of  this 
entry  in  his  diary,  and  probably  a  portion  of  a 
prayer  to  God  for  the  sovereign  —  their  very 
existence  known  to  no  soul  on  earth  but  Penry 
himself  —  two  indictments  were  framed,  or 
perhaps  we  should  say  "framed  up,"  by  Lord 
Coke.  This  legal  worthy  ransacked  the  law 
books  to  find  a  death  penalty  that  could  be 
made  to  apply.  This  State  Churchman  found 
that  which  he  sought  in  what  Penry  called  a 
"diary  or  daily  observation  of  mine  own  sins 
and  corruptions  and  of  the  special  requests 
which  I  made  unto  the  Lord." 

There  was  on  the  statute  books  the  reenact- 
ment  of  a  law  passed  during  the  reign  of  Bloody 
Mary  and  her  Spanish  Philip  —  who  stands  in 

[95] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

history  as  responsible  for  the  death,  by  fire, 
sword,  rope,  and  torture,  of  scores  of  Enghsh- 
men  and  thousands  of  Belgians  and  Dutchmen. 
Behind  Lord  Coke  and  Lord  Treasurer  Burgh- 
ley  were  the  prelates  eager  for  blood  and  urg- 
ing on  the  judges. 

In  a  letter,  written  the  night  before  the  jury 
rendered  Its  verdict,  "to  be  hanged  without 
delay,"  Penry  wrote  out  a  long  paper,  not  for 
life  or  reprieve,  but  only  to  demonstrate  his 
innocence  and  loyalty.  Like  our  own  Nathan 
Hale,  whose  single  regret  was  that  he  had  but 
one  life  to  give  for  his  country,  Penry  wrote: 
"If  my  death  can  procure  any  quietness  unto 
the  churches  of  God  and  unto  the  state  of  my 
Prince  and  her  kingdom,  wherein  I  was  born, 
glad  am  I  that  I  had  a  life  to  bestow  In  this 
service." 

He  wrote  further,  "The  Lord  bless  her  High- 
ness with  a  long  and  prosperous  reign  to  his 
glory,"  etc.  His  hope  was  "  subscribed  with  that 
heart  and  that  hand  which  never  devised  or 
wrote  anything  to  the  discredit  or  defamation 
of  our  sovereign  Queen  Elizabeth." 

One  can  readily  see  what  kind  of  a  govern- 
ment England  had  that  could  send  a  man  to 
the  gallows  on  such  evidence.  On  the  29th,  the 
authorities,  fearing  the  people  and  probably  a 

[96] 


MARTYRS  FOR  A  FREE  CHURCH 

mob  of  rescue,  the  prisoner  was  led  out,  at 
five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  to  the  execution 
ground  on  the  Surrey  side.  By  orders  from  the 
prelates  Penry  was  choked  off  from  saying  a 
single  word,  and  the  only  witnesses  were  sym- 
pathizers on  the  watch  for  just  such  an  atroc- 
ity. 

At  thirty-four  years  of  age  Penry  died  a 
Free  Churchman,  servant  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  a 
true  Pilgrim  Father,  in  that  he  urged  his  peo- 
ple of  like  faith  to  leave  England  and  emigrate 
to  the  land  "where  religion  was  free  for  all 
men"  and  conscience  was  safeguarded.  There 
was,  indeed,  need  for  flight.  Fletcher,  in  his 
"History  of  Independency,"  pictures  the  situa- 
tion, as  the  prelates  were  "causing  heavy  de- 
crees to  come  forth  against  us,  that  we  should 
foreswear  our  country  and  depart,  or  else  be 
slaves  therein." 

'  Penry  advised  the  Separatists  to  go  in  a  body 
and  keep  together,  hoping  also  that  his  widow 
and  four  fatherless  children  might  be  taken 
with  them.  His  words,  showing  that  he  was  to 
the  first  emigration  to  the  Dutch  Republic 
what  Robinson  was  to  the  American  venture  — 
its  animating  spirit  —  are  worth  quoting.  We 
should  remember  them,  especially,  as  we  enter 
upon  the  fourth  century  of  honor  to  the  Pil- 

[97] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

grlms.  He  desired  that  the  communal  spirit  of 
the  first  followers  of  Jesus  should  prevail.  In  a 
word,  neither  Bradford,  nor  Brewster,  nor  Rob- 
inson, great  as  they  were,  rose  above  Penry,  in 
voice  or  spirit  —  because  such  a  thing  was  not 
possible.  What  the  Compact,  made  at  Cape 
Cod,  was  to  the  Pilgrim  Republic  in  America, 
Penry's  Legacy  was  for  the  first  refugees  in 
tlieir  exodus  to  Holland. 

Thus  Penry  wrote:  "And  my  good  brethren, 
seeing  banishment  with  loss  of  goods  is  likely 
to  betide  you  all,  prepare  yourselves  for  this 
hard  entreaty  and  rejoice  that  ye  are  made 
worthy  for  Christ's  sake  to  suffer  and  bear  all 
these  things  .  .  .  that  none  of  you  look  upon  his 
particular  estate,  but  regard  the  general  state 
of  the  church  of  God,  that  the  same  may  go 
and  be  kept  together  whithersoever  it  shall 
please  God  to  send  you  .  .  .  consult  with  the 
whole  church,  yea,  with  the  brethren  of  other 
places,  how  the  church  may  be  kept  together 
and  built  wheresoever  they  go.  Let  not  the 
poor  and  friendless  stay  behind  here  and  be 
forced  to  break  a  good  conscience,  for  want  of 
your  support  and  kindness  unto  them,  that 
they  may  go  with  you,"  etc. 

In  these  noble  words  is  foreshadowed  the 
whole  history  of  the  Pilgrim  movement  and 

[98] 


MARTYRS  FOR  A  FREE  CHURCH 

that  of  the  churches,  In  true  apostoHcal  succes- 
sion, which,  from  being  independent,  became 
Congregational  in  unbroken  brotherhood. 

Against  the  brutal  epitaphs  of  the  contem- 
poraneous rhymesters  we  may  place  in  con- 
trast Lowell's  hymn,  now  sung  in  both  the 
State  and  the  Free  Churches  in  England  and 
wherever  in  our  English  tongue  his  words  are 
lifted  in  thankful  praise  to  God : 

"Once  to  every  man  and  nation 
Comes  the  moment  to  decide." 

That  time  had  come  for  the  Free  Churchmen 
to  be  pilgrims  and  to  leave  the  old  home.  Again 
we  remember  Lowell's  words : 

"Yet  that  scaffold  sways  the  future." 

In  history's  perspective  of  three  centuries  we 
discern  fulfillment.  It  was  from  Penry's  scaf- 
fold that  the  movement  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers 
began.  "The  future,"  swayed  by  that  scaffold, 
is  now  American  history. 

And  to-day  how  glorious  the  difference  be- 
tween a  bishop  of  Tudor  days,  able  to  imprison 
and  order  to  death,  and  one  of  the  age  we  live 
in!  From  England,  in  191 8,  is  this  voice  from 
the  Committee  appointed  by  the  archbishops 
of  Canterbury  and  York,  in  preparation  for  the 
World  Conference  on  Faith  and  Order,  which 

[99] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

includes  representatives  of  the  Established  and 
Free  Churches : 

"The  second  fact  which  we  agree  to  acknowl- 
edge is  that  there  are  a  number  of  Christian 
Churches  not  accepting  the  Episcopal  Order 
which  have  been  used  by  the  Holy  Spirit  in  His 
work  of  enlightening  the  world,  converting  sin- 
ners, and  perfecting  Saints.  They  came  into 
being  through  reaction  from  grave  abuses  in 
the  Church  at  the  time  of  their  origin,  and  were 
led  in  response  to  fresh  apprehensions  of  Di- 
vine truth  to  give  expression  to  certain  types 
of  Christian  experience,  aspiration,  and  fellow- 
ship, and  to  secure  rights  of  the  Christian  peo- 
ple which  had  been  neglected  or  denied." 

Under  date  of  April  24,  1919,  a  venerable 
American  bishop  writes  from  Saint  Louis: 
"The  Church  is  the  whole  body  of  the  faithful, 
who  believe  in  Jesus  Christ  as  God  the  Son,  and 
want  to  love  and  serve  Him.  A  portion  of  the 
faithful  body  is  known  as  the  Protestant  Epis- 
copal Church  in  the  United  States." 

Such  words  compel  in  us  all,  of  every  name, 
"faith,  hope,  love,  these  three;  and  the  greatest 
of  these  is  love." 


CHAPTER  IX 
BREWSTER:  THE  BOY  TRAVELER 

The  Pilgrim  story  covers  somewhat  over  a  cen- 
tury,, if  we  begin  it  with  the  birth  of  WilHam 
Brewster,  about  1567,  and  end  it  in  1690. 
Within  that  space  of  time  no  figure  stands  out 
more  prominently.  He  lived  to  be  eighty  years 
of  age,  and  in  1647  had  seen  more  of  the  world 
than  any  one  else  in  the  Plymouth  Company. 
He  was  the  traveled  man  of  the  party  and  their 
pilot  into  the  land  "where  religion  was  free  for 
all  men."  In  Leyden  he  was  the  Pilgrim  church 
elder,  printer,  and  publisher.  At  sea  he  led  the 
worship.  In  Plymouth  he  was  guide,  philoso- 
pher, friend,  and  teacher,  and  the  ancestor  of 
many  families  eminent  in  American  history. 

Brewster  the  boy  lived  when  times  were 
lively.  Most  probably  he  read  the  Martin 
Marprelate  Tracts.  England  was  beginning  to 
have  something  like  a  postal  system.  Born  at 
Scrooby,  probably  in  1567,  the  boy  received 
some  education  locally,  and  then  went  to  Peter- 
house  College  at  Cambridge.  It  may  have  been 
during  a  vacation  that  he  met  the  queen's  en- 
voy, William  Davison,  traveling  north  to  Scot- 
[lOl] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

land,  who  stopped  at  Scrooby.  Then,  most 
probably,  the  two  made  each  other's  acquaint- 
ance. 

In  1584  Queen  Elizabeth  sent  Davison  as  her 
ambassador  across  the  sea  to  the  Dutch  Repub- 
lic and  Brewster  went  with  him  as  page.  This 
Vv^as  a  wonderful  experience  for  a  wide-awake 
lad  in  the  Dutch  United  States.  He  at  once  no- 
ticed how  much  alike,  yet  how  different  from 
those  at  home,  were  the  language,  people, 
houses,  and  manners.  In  many  things  the  re- 
publicans were  not  only  "up  to  date,"  but  were 
often  far  ahead  of  the  English  of  the  Tudor  era 
in  the  comforts  and  victories  of  civilization.  He 
noted  especially  the  freedom  of  the  press  and 
the  liberty  of  the  types;  for  the  Netherlands 
was  then  the  printing  office  of  Europe.  In 
Brewster's  country  nothing  could  be  put  in 
type  or  published  without  the  consent  of  some 
bishop,  who  made  it  his  business  to  suppress 
whatever  did  not  please  him.  Hence  in  England 
the  common  people  could  find  out  what  was 
going  on  only  by  holding  secret  meetings.  Even 
the  Bible  and  other  printed  matter  had  to  be 
smuggled  in  under  shiploads  of  grain  or  in  bar- 
rels of  herring  or  flour.  Nevertheless,  the  Eng- 
lish people  in  the  Free  Churches  made  abun- 
dant use  of  Dutch  facilities  for  their  long  fight, 
[  102  ] 


-^^ 


S: 


1 


BREWSTER:  THE  BOY  TRAVELER 

which  was  one  of  reason  against  unreason 
without  resort  to  violence.  It  was  at  Dor- 
drecht that  the  Enghsh  Separatists  printed 
their  first  confession  of  faith,  which  was  most 
probably  from  the  pens  of  Barrowe  and  Green- 
wood. The 'work  was  entitled  "A  True  De- 
scription out  of  the  Word  of  God  of  the  Visible 
Church."  The  pith  of  this  democratic  docu- 
ment —  the  heart  of  Congregational  Church 
government  —  Is  in  the  sentence,  "Thus  hath 
every  one  of  the  people  interest  in  the  election 
and  ordination  of  their  officers  ...  by  the  holy 
and  free  elections  of  the  Lord's  holy  and  free 
people." 

Tyndale,  the  greatest  of  all  the  makers  of  the 
English  Bible,  had  been  garroted  and  put  to 
death  for  translating  the  Holy  Book.  On  the 
contrary,  In  Holland,  anybody  could  print  any- 
thing that  was  not  false  or  libelous,  or  that  did 
not  help  the  Republic's  enemies,  the  Spaniards. 
Books,  as  well  as  pictures,  were  much  more 
general  among  the  Dutch  than  among  the 
English  of  this  period.  For  many  years,  even 
after  Brewster  was  eighty  years  old,  most  of 
the  Bibles  In  English,  read  In  the  British  Isles, 
were  printed  in  Amsterdam  and  thence  Im- 
ported into  England  by  hundreds  of  thousands. 

Another  thing,  which  this  bright  English 
[  103  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

boy  noticed,  was  the  almost  perfect  freedom 
of  religion.  Instead  of  shutting  up  people  in 
prison,  or  putting  them  to  death  for  holding 
religious  meetings,  every  one,  Catholic,  Ana- 
baptist, Protestant,  Jew,  or  heretic  of  any  sort, 
could  worship  God  in  the  way  he  chose  and  no 
one  hindered  him.  Even  those  people  who  had 
odd  Ideas  about  government,  war,  and  prop- 
erty were  let  alone,  If  they  behaved  themselves 
and  Injured  no  one.  Let  them  enter  their  houses 
and  shut  their  doors,  not  making  any  public 
show  or  street  parade,  and  no  one  was  allowed 
to  harm  them.  Already,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
great  William  the  Silent  had  rebuked  the  mag- 
istrates, who,  having  minds  like  those  of  Eng- 
lish bishops,  were  inclined  to  persecute.  All 
this  was  very  different  from  the  state  of  things 
in  England. 

Young  Brewster  noticed  also  that  the  refu- 
gees of  both  races  from  Belgium,  the  southern- 
ers, or  Walloons,  who  spoke  French,  and  the 
northerners,  or  Flemings,  who  spoke  Dutch, 
were  very  numerous  In  the  Republic,  which  had 
been  formed  In  the  edifice  called  the  "Old 
Cradle  of  Liberty  "  (In  which  to-day  Is  a  tablet 
reared  by  Americans),  at  Utrecht  in  1579.  He 
saw  everywhere  the  orange,  white,  and  blue 
national  flag;  and  on  all  the  ships  the  seven  red 
'  [  104  ] 


BREWSTER:  THE  BOY  TRAVELER 

and  white  stripes  of  the  flag  of  the  Federal 
Union,  in  which  every  stripe  stood  for  one 
state,  with  one  vote  in  the  national  congress. 

In  the  English  language  the  word  "stripe," 
meaning  a  color  band,  was  not  yet  in  use,  so 
that  the  Hebrew  record,  in  Genesis,  of  Joseph's 
"  coat  of  many  stripes,"  and  of  the  Princess 
Tamar's  robe,  in  2  Samuel  13:18,  had  to  be 
translated  "of  many  colors."  Later,  during  ten 
years,  Brewster  lived  as  neighbor  and  friend 
with  many  of  these  Belgian  people.  He  sailed 
away  to  Massachusetts,  while  the  Walloons 
settled  in  New  York  and  New  Jersey,  as  the 
Pilgrim  Fathers  of  our  Middle  States. 

Another  strong  characteristic  of  the  Dutch, 
which  this  bright  boy  could  not  help  noticing, 
was  their  zeal  for  education.  Their  public 
schools  were  open  and  free  to  every  one  —  for 
girls  as  well  as  boys.  These  schools  were  sus- 
tained by  general  taxation  and  were  already 
an  old  institution,  such  as  England  did  not 
have  until  nearly  three  centuries  afterward. 

What  seemed  very  remarkable  was  the  great 
number  and  cheapness  of  pictures  and  engrav- 
ings, for  woodcuts  were  general.  The  Dutch 
loved  fun  and  satire.  They  were  great  people 
for  making  sarcastic  sketches  and  caricatures 
of  persons  and  things.  In  place  of  kings,  bishops, 

[  105] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

and  courtiers  they  had  pohtical  parties  and 
tlieir  pohtics  were  veiy  Hvely.  Young  Brewster 
was  mightily  taken  with  this  idea  of  a  free 
press;  for  when  in  Holland  again,  some  years 
afterwards,  he  set  up  a  printing  press  and  be- 
came a  printer  of  books,  thus  hoping  to  convert 
his  countrymen  to  Free  Church  ideas.  The 
Pilgrim  Press  in  Bell  Alley  had  a  famous  his- 
tory. Its  effect  in  England  on  King  James  was 
much  like  that  of  a  bent  pin  laid  point  up- 
ward on  the  royal  chair,  making  the  sitter 
very  angry.  The  royal  Scot  in  London  tried 
hard  to  get  his  clutch  on  Brewster,  but  he 
never  caught  the  Pilgrim  printer  and  founder 
of  the  Pilgrim  Press. 

It  was  in  August,  1584,  that  young  Brewster 
traveled  through  Holland.  So  he  saw  his  first 
foreign  country  at  about  the  best  time  of  the 
year.  The  flowers  and  the  birds  were  out,  the 
children  were  at  play  in  the  streets,  and  the 
farm  laborers  busy  in  the  fields.  In  spite  of 
the  fact  that  it  was  war-time  and  soldiers  were 
everywhere,  making  things  lively  in  town  and 
camp,  the  country  seemed  very  prosperous, 
for  the  Dutch  knew  what  sea-power  was. 
Brewster  noticed  that  they  had  more  green 
things  and  a  greater  variety  of  food  on  their 
table  than  in  his  home  land.  The  British  sol- 
[io6] 


BREWSTER:  THE  BOY  TRAVELER 

diers,  six  thousand  of  whom  were  in  the  Re- 
public as  allies,  called  Zeeland  "Queen  Eliz- 
abeth's kitchen  garden,"  because  so  many 
succulent  garden  vegetables,  then  hardly  known 
in  England,  were  raised  here  and  exported  to 
London. 

The  towns,  besides  The  Hague,  of  which 
Brewster  saw  the  most,  were  the  great  seaport 
city  of  Flushing,  on  the  river  Scheldt,  in  Zee- 
land;  Brill,  near  Rotterdam,  on  the  west  coast; 
and  Rammekins,  which  was  a  small  fortress 
in  the  south.  These  "cautionary  towns"  were 
held  by  British  garrisons  as  security  for  the 
payment  of  £100,000,  which,  as  a  true  "liberty 
loan,"  the  London  merchants  had  made  to  the 
Dutch  Republic.  Bergen-op-Zoom  was  also  a 
famous  place  for  British  soldiers,  and  here  an 
English  church  existed  for  some  years.  The 
British,  or  rather  the  English,  flag  was  a  very 
familiar  sight  in  Holland,  from  1584  until  1648. 
When  most  of  the  British  troops  returned  home, 
the  Scotch  Brigade  of  three  regiments  re- 
mained in  Holland,  in  the  service  and  pay  of 
the  States-General  until  1795.  In  1776,  our 
Dutch  allies  in  the  Revolution  would  not — • 
despite  pressure  from  King  George  III  and  Sir 
Joseph  Yorke,  the  British  envoy  at  The  Hague 
—  allow  their  splendid  battalions  to  be  used 

[  107  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

against  us.  A  tablet  In  honor  of  this  superb 
body  of  soldiers  was  reared  by  grateful  Amer- 
icans upon  the  walls  of  the  Scotch  church  in 
Rotterdam  and  unveiled  in  1913. 

Davison,  as  we  have  seen,  had  lived  a  long 
time  in  Antwerp,  and  had  a  good  reputation 
with  the  Dutch,  who  trusted  him  as  they  did 
not  trust  Leicester.  There  was  also  a  brilliant 
young  officer.  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  who,  on  hear- 
ing of  the  Dutch  fight  for  freedom,  had  crossed 
the  sea,  like  our  Lafayette,  to  help  the  strug- 
gling republic  against  overwhelming  odds.  In 
one  of  the  first  skirmishes  with  the  Spaniards 
at  Zutphen,  he  was  struck  in  the  leg  with  a 
bullet;  but,  unlike  our  French  altruist,  who 
was  wounded  at  the  battle  of  Brandywine, 
Sidney  did  not  recover.  Yet,  like  the  Ameri- 
cans led  by  General  Pershing,  who,  in  1917,  laid 
a  wreath  on  the  hero's  grave  at  the  Picpus 
cemetery  in  Paris,  the  Dutch,  who  have  always 
felt  gratitude  to  their  noble  deliverer,  reared  a 
splendid  monument  at  Zutphen,  in  1910,  in 
honor  of  Sir  Philip's  memory.  His  name  is  un- 
dying among  us  Americans  also,  for  Sidney's 
Latin,  "Ense  petit  placidam  sub  libertate 
quietem"  is  the  motto  of  Massachusetts  — 
which  in  19 18  might  be  that  of  the  American 
Commonwealth  —  "By  the  sword  she  seeks 
[  108  1 


BREWSTER:  THE  BOY  TRAVELER 

placid  calm  under  liberty."  In  our  days,  Henty, 
the  boy's  delight,  has  written  the  story,  "By 
Pike  and  Dyke;  or,  By  England's  Aid."  It  is 
entirely  true  that  Queen  Elizabeth,  with  the 
inspiration  of  her  presence  before  her  army  at 
Tilbury  in  noble  language  and  with  material 
assistance,  aided  the  Republic,  sending  thou- 
sands of  "help  troops"  to  fight  the  Spaniards; 
but  it  is  equally  true  that  Holland  was  fighting 
England's  battle  —  just  as  France,  England, 
and  Italy  were  fighting  for  us  in  1914-17  — 
and  that  both  were  making  the  world  safe  for 
the  democracy  which  we  enjoy. 

Nor  could  young  Brewster  fail  to  notice  that 
Dutch  family  names  were,  as  a  rule,  taken 
from  the  places  where  they  had  lived,  while 
similar  geographical  terms  in  England  were 
mostly  confined  to  nobles.  Place-names  in  the 
Netherlands,  were  not,  as  in  Germany,  mo- 
nopolized by  the  junkers  or  nobles,  but  were 
allowed  to  the  common  people.  When  plain 
folk  in  England  took  family  names  —  of  which 
there  were  few  before  the  Reformation — • 
these  were  almost  wholly  borrowed  from  trades 
or  occupations.  The  reasons  for  this  are  very 
plain.  Under  feudalism  the  land  is  held  chiefly 
by  nobles,  the  common  folk  being  less  ten- 
ants than  semi-serfs,  or  "villeins,"  as  they  are 
[  109  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

called  in  Magna  Charta,  or  adscript!  glebes, 
in  Latin,  which  means  written  as  belonging  to 
the  soil.  This  system  of  land-ownership  held 
on  later  in  England  than  in  the  Netherlands; 
where  the  people,  especially  the  workmen  in 
organized  industry,  won  their  freedom  and  the 
farmers  became  owners  of  the  soil.  As  for  the 
Dutch  cities  they  had  charters,  not  in  Latin, 
but  in  the  speech  of  the  masses,  and  some  of 
them  as  old  as  Magna  Charta.  In  fact,  in  some 
parts  of  the  Netherlands,  such  as  Friesland, 
where  democracy  was  permanent,  feudalism 
was  hardly  known. 

Naturally  in  England,  when,  under  the  new 
economics,  the  feudal  system  faded  away  and 
novel  interests  and  occupations  arose,  the  peo- 
ple took  their  names  from  their  trades,  such  as 
Brewster,  Fletcher,  Webster,  Smith,  Wright, 
Warner,  Goldsmith,  etc.,  writing  them  with  a 
capital.  Nor  is  it  anything  wonderful  that  the 
Smiths  and  Wrights  are  so  numerous.  The 
organization  of  the  guilds  stimulated  the  tak- 
ing by  the  craftsmen  of  family  names  from 
their  trades.  In  other  cases  the  son's  name 
became  the  family  name,  such  as  Robinson, 
Johnson,  Williamson,  Richardson,  etc.  Later 
on,  the  town,  or  "ton,"  as  in  Washington, 
Johnston,  Clifton,  etc.,  became  more  common. 

[  no] 


BREWSTER:  THE  BOY  TRAVELER 

Still  later,  the  plain  people  adopted  the  terms 
"hurst,"  "  thorpe,"  "by,"  etc.,  which  are  now 
so  general. 

Even  to  this  day,  in  Great  Britain,  which 
awaits  the  same  beneficent  agrarian  revolution 
as  has  taken  place  in  Holland,  France,  Japan, 
and  most  civilized  countries,  there  are  rela- 
tively very  few  owners  of  the  soil,  most  of  the 
land  being  held  by  less  than  half  a  thousand 
persons,  instead  of  by  tens  of  thousands  of 
peasant  proprietors,  as  in  the  other  countries 
named.  In  a  word,  Brewster — •  this  potentially 
future  American  — •  found  that  things  in  a  re- 
public in  the  sixteenth  century  were  at  many 
points  in  notable  contrast  and  often  far  better 
than  in  a  monarchy. 

Wars,  besides  rarely  ever  settling  the  ques- 
tions for  which  they  are  fought,  are  always 
costly  and  wasteful.  The  Dutch  republicans 
were  hard-pressed  to  raise  money  enough  to 
keep  an  army  in  the  field  to  drive  back  the 
Spaniards.  Beginning  in  1567,  according  to 
Father  William's  motto,  "I  will  maintain," 
they  kept  up  the  struggle,  which  was  not  ended 
until  1648;  that  is,  for  eighty  years.  They  had 
to  make  repeated  "drives"  for  "  liberty  loans." 
Every  one  in  the  Republic,  man,  woman,  girl, 
and  boy,  had  to  "do  his  bit"  in  order  that  the 

[III  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

soldiers  of  freedom  should  go  "over  the  top" 
in  victory  —  which  they  had  done  long  before 
peace  came  officially.  There  was  an  armistice, 
or  truce,  from  1609  to  1621,  which  was  the 
time  of  the  Pilgrims'  sojourn  in  Holland. 

William  the  Silent  had  set  the  example,  by 
selling  off,  for  the  benefit  of  the  fatherland,  his 
splendid  outfit  of  "plate"  —  from  the  Spanish 
word  "plata,"  "silver"  —  consisting  of  cups, 
goblets,  dishes,  and  ornaments  of  all  sorts.  It 
is  no  wonder  the  Dutch,  during  his  lifetime, 
called  him  the  Father  of  his  Country  and  still 
do  so;  giving  us  in  this  a  noble  precedent;  for 
our  Washington,  as  general,  served  without 
pay.  The  people  responded  to  Father  William's 
call,  the  women  offering  their  jewels  and  the 
men  their  coin. 

So  it  came  to  pass  than  when  Davison  and 
his  page  Brewster  sailed  on  the  return  voyage 
to  England,  they  carried  over  £40,000  or 
3200,000  worth  of  Dutch  jewelry  and  plate. 
This  was  part  of  the  security,  or  collateral,  for 
the  money  loaned  the  Dutch.  It  was  a  true 
"liberty  loan"  in  aid  of  freedom,  of  which  the 
world,  and  especially  we  Americans,  enjoy  the 
benefit  to-day. 

After  Davison  had  returned  to  England  he 
was  in  daily  attendance  on  the  queen  from 

[    "2  ] 


BREWSTER:  THE  BOY  TRAVELER 

August,  1586,  to  February,  1587.  He  was  even 
made  Clerk  of  the  King's  Bench.  His  being 
high  in  office  gave  his  page,  young  Brewster, 
splendid  opportunities  of  seeing  court  life  and 
the  sights  of  London.  This  was  when  "the 
City"  and  Westminster  and  the  villages,  now 
swallowed  in  the  great  municipality,  were  dis- 
tant and  separate. 

Who  knows  but  the  boy  met  Shakespeare  or 
saw  and  heard  some  of  his  plays  .f*  Most  of  the 
great  bard's  comedies  and  dramas  were  written 
more  especially  to  please  the  young  folks  of 
his  time.  The  theaters  were  then  of  the  rudest 
sort,  very  far  from  being  equal  in  comfort  to 
some  of  our  Pennsylvania  barns.  Shakespeare 
kept  himself  astonishingly  aloof  and  free  from 
the  great  living  questions  of  his  time.  Among 
other  people,  whom  the  great  plajAvright 
heard  and  made  fun  of,  were  the  "Brownists." 
This  tickled  the  audiences,  that  were  then  pas- 
sive under  the  oppression  of  their  kings  and 
prelates  and  far  different  in  their  sentiments 
from  those  of  to-day. 

A  mighty  change  was  soon  to  take  place  in 
young  Brewster's  life.  Davison's  ambitions  and 
high  hopes,  his  fortunes  and  his  public  career 
came  suddenly  to  an  end  when  the  queen  made 
of  him  a  cat's-paw  for  her  alleged  self-protec- 

[113] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

tion.  She  signed  the  death  warrant  of  Mary, 
Queen  of  Scots,  and  then  sought  some  one  on 
whom  to  throw  the  odium  of  the  act.  In  this 
those  who  think  the  sovereign  of  England  was 
a  male  find  an  argument!  She  certainly  had  a 
genius  for  discovering  scapegoats,  which  was 
quite  equal  to  that  of  our  first  ancestor,  Adam. 


CHAPTER  X 
BRADFORD:  BOY  HERO  AND  TYPICAL  PILGRIM 

If  William  Brewster  be  thought  the  typical 
Pilgrim,  layman,  church  officer,  man  of  the 
world,  and  leader  of  the  first  flight  beyond  sea 
of  the  Separatists,  William  Bradford  stands 
out  as  the  practical,  all-around,  business  man, 
in  the  second  and  trans-Atlantic  voyage.  Like 
that  of  our  Washington,  his  was  "a  well- 
balanced  organization."  To  strive  for  perfec- 
tion In  man's  threefold  nature,  body,  soul, 
and  spirit,  according  to  his  Master's  command 
and  Paul's  prayer  and  Ideal,  was  Bradford's 
life  endeavor. 

Less  than  two  miles  from  Scrooby  Is  the 
market  town  of  Austerfield.  In  this  village 
lived  a  boy  several  years  younger  than  Brew- 
ster. Yet  these  two  were  to  be  lifelong  com- 
panions, and  both  of  them  were  pioneers  In  all 
the  good  ideas  and  actions  that  make  the 
United  States,  and  the  best  Americans,  what 
they  are.  This  boy  was  William  Bradford. 
Some  of  us  have  seen  the  record  of  his  baptism 
in  the  little  Norman  church  at  Austerfield 
on  the  Austerfield  church  parchment.  We  re- 

[  115  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

member  also  the  old  font,  or  baptismal  bowl, 
before  which  he  was  christened ;  though  when, 
in  1 891,  we  made  examination,  it  lay  upon  the 
ground  and  was  used  for  chickens  to  drink  out 
of.  It  had  become  so  old,  dark,  and  crusted  by 
centuries  of  use,  that  it  has  been  replaced  by 
a  new  one.  Not  long  after  the  ancient  font 
was  bought  as  a  relic  by  some  American. 

Bradford's  ancestors  had  been  yeomen,  who 
formed  the  class  next  to  the  knights,  some  of 
whom  owned  land  and  from  whom  in  war- 
time the  infantry,  or  archers,  spearmen  or 
swordsmen  were  recruited.  They  won  deserved 
fame  for  their  steadiness  in  battle,  their  brav- 
ery in  the  charge,  and  their  accuracy  as  archers. 
In  using,  as  we  still  do,  the  phrase  "yeomen's 
service,"  we  do  but  recall  old  traditions. 

At  the  north  end  of  Austerfield  village,  a 
brick  house  is  shown  in  which  Bradford  is 
said  to  have  been  born.  It  is  now  divided  into 
tenements  for  two  families.  This  tradition  may 
be  true,  for  the  Flemings  had  introduced  the 
making  of  bricks  a  century  or  more  previous, 
and  such  dwellings  were  then  becoming  com- 
mon. There  is  also  still  standing,  on  the  old 
manor  ground  at  Scrooby,  a  brick  house,  later 
than  the  main  edifice,  which  latter  has  long  ago 
been  taken  down. 

[  ii6] 


BRADFORD:  TYPICAL  PILGRIM 

Bradford's  father  and  mother  died  early  in 
his  life.  Among  other  things  bequeathed  to  him 
by  will  were  a  "cupboard  in  the  house,"  a 
settee,  a  yoke  of  oxen,  a  corselet,  or  bit  of  body 
armor,  and  an  iron-bound  wain,  or  wagon.  In 
old  EngHsh  the  "house"  meant  the  best  inside 
room,  or  parlor;  because,  indeed,  before  evolu- 
tion into  the  modern  form  of  the  dwelling  di- 
vided into  many  apartments,  this  big  room  was 
all  there  was  of  the  house,  whether  in  castle  or 
cottage.  The  "home"  meant  of  old  the  seat  of 
domestic  life,  including  both  the  dwelling  and 
the  ground  near  by. 

Bradford  was  a  serious  boy,  and  therefore,  in 
the  long  run,  one  of  the  happiest,  and  sure  to 
live  the  longer  for  being  so;  existence  itself 
meaning  enjoyment.  Quite  early  in  life  he  fell 
under  the  influence  of  a  Puritan  minister  at 
Babworth.  This  place  is  now  about  ten  miles 
from  Scrooby;  though  when  the  high  hedges, 
which  are  now  so  general  in  England,  were  not 
so  common  —  for  most  of  the  land  was  then 
used  as  sheep  pasture  and  unenclosed  —  a  good 
walker  could,  by  short  cuts,  shorten  his  route 
a  mile  or  two. 

So  Bradford  as  a  boy  had  the  delight  of  grow- 
ing up  to  be  a  true  Christian  — ■  than  which  hap- 
piness there  can  be  no  greater  path  of  pleasure 

[  117] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

or  one  richer  in  the  durable  satisfactions  of  life. 
His  was  the  joy  of  following  closely  in  the  foot- 
steps of  Him  "who  left  us  an  example  that  we 
should  follow  in  his  steps."  Whether  we  call 
that  towering  figure  in  history,  a  Hebrew,  the 
Prophet  of  Nazareth,  the  Samurai  of  the  Ages, 
the  World's  First  Gentleman,  or  "our  Friend, 
our  Brother  and  our  Lord,"  Bradford,  by  keep- 
ing his  commandments,  knew  him  in  all  these 
endearing  relations.  Bradford's  attitude  was 
ever  one  of  devoted  loyalty  to  his  Master. 
Hence  his  unquailing  courage  throughout  life. 

View  and  appraise  Jesus  as  we  may,  accord- 
ing to  our  hereditary,  family,  or  theological  no- 
tions or  inheritances,  adjudge  Him  from  his 
simple  manliness,  or  as  a  unique  character  in 
human  annals,  we  shall  appreciate  Him  all  the 
more  if  we  also  can  enter  into  Bradford's  expe- 
riences. This  eminently  practical  man,  of  deep 
feelings  and  tender  emotions,  by  ever  closer 
acquaintance  with  his  Master,  sweetened  in 
character  and  grew  stronger  with  age.  He  sat 
ever  at  the  feet  of  the  Teacher,  who  stands 
higher  than  any  dogma,  tradition,  ritual,  or 
organization  that  claims  to  represent  him. 

It  was  this  typical  Pilgrim  w^ho  gave  his  com- 
pany their  immortal  name.  As  brave  as  Bun- 
yan's  ideal  hero,  Bradford  was  as  certain,  de- 
[  ii8] 


BRADFORD:  TYPICAL  PILGRIM 

spite  life's  varied  obstacles,  to  reach  that  goal 
of  true  success  which  stands  the  test  of  time 
and  of  eternity.  To  the  Pilgrim  governor  there 
was  no  potency  for  the  solving  of  problems 
equal  to  that  enfolded  in  the  precepts  of  Jesus. 
Bradford  found  that  in  common  life  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  was  workable,  because  his  inter- 
pretation of  it  came  from  a  vital  view  and  use  of 
its  truths,  quite  apart  from  creeds,  speculative 
philosophy,  or  church  policy.  He  saw  that  all 
human  actions  have  worth  only  as  they  are 
freed  from  selfishness,  and  as  the  Father  in 
Heaven  sees  them.  To  him  the  Word  of  his 
Master  was  ever  as  David's  old  sword  —  "none 
like  it."  Bradford  wrought  always  as  in  his 
"Great  Taskmaster's  eye." 

That  Bradford  was  a  happy  boy  needs  no 
proof  or  argument  to  any  who,  as  a  boy,  has 
known  by  rich  experience  that  real  religion 
which  is  never  outside,  but  always  within  and 
very  deep  in  the  soul.  To  have  hung  or  based  his 
life  wholly  on  a  corporation,  a  ritual,  a  creed,  a 
tradition  formulated  by  somebody  else,  might 
have  meant  sorrow  or  abridged  his  joy;  but  to 
have  found  in  his  own  soul  the  test  of  sonship 
with  God,  with  proof  and  assurance,  and  in  his 
daily  life  tokens  of  loyalty  to  his  Master  and 
great  Captain,  meant  perpetual  cheer  and  un- 

[  119] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

diminished  delight.  In  fact,  his  Christian  ex- 
perience was  for  him  a  deep,  unfaihng  well  of 
refreshment,  from  which  he  could  hourly  drink 
and  gain  new  strength,  and  this  deepened  with 
his  years.  In  old  age  his  annotations  or  second 
thoughts,  expressed  in  his  manuscript  history, 
are  pseans  of  thanksgiving.  Of  certain  old  pil- 
grims before  him  it  was  said  that,  "passing 
through  the  valley  of  weeping,  they  made  it  a 
place  of  springs." 

So  all  his  life  Bradford  found  perpetual  foun- 
tains of  cheer.  He  was  the  man  to  inspire  others, 
because  he  himself  was  so  richly  provided  with 
the  elements  of  hope.  Like  the  lone  prisoner  on 
the  Roman  corn  ship  in  the  stormy  Mediterra- 
nean, when  others  were  paralyzed  by  terror  or 
white  with  fear,  he  could  stand  unafraid  on  the 
deck,  be  the  real  captain,  and  say,  "  Sirs,  be  of 
good  cheer." 

Bradford's  religion  was  that  of  the  genuine 
Puritan,  which  was  and  is  as  different  from 
the  caricatures  made  of  it  by  the  average  mod- 
ern scribbler,  on  the  stage,  and  in  the  novel,  as 
sunlight  differs  from  the  whale-oil  lamp  that 
serves  to  make  darkness  visible.  The  life  of  God 
in  Bradford  did  not  consist  merely  in  attend- 
ing meetings,  going  to  church  or  conventicle, 
on  keeping  the  Sabbath  —  important  as  these 
[  120  ] 


BRADFORD:  TYPICAL  PILGRIM 

might  seem  —  but  of  daily,  hourly  gratitude  to 
God  and  willing  service  to  man. 

Bradford  learned  by  bitter  experience  that 
"the  Church"  so  called,  the  State-propped  or 
supported  corporation,  whether  universal  or 
local,  whether  "Holy  Catholic"  or  "Holy 
Christian,"  sectarian,  or  however  named,  is  not 
necessarily  a  patron  or  lover  of  either  righteous- 
ness or  true  holiness.  Whether  in  his  day  or  ours, 
or  in  the  centuries  past,  who  can  associate  any 
radical  reforms  with  "the  Church".''  Be  it  si- 
mony, slavery,  the  slave  trade,  prohibition  of 
liquid  poison  in  strong  drink,  the  abolition  of 
flogging  in  school,  army,  or  navy,  prison  reform, 
rational  medicine,  proper  treatment  of  the  in- 
sane, the  enfranchisement  of  women,  the  white 
slave  traffic,  oppression  of  the  laboring  man  by 
legally  buttressed  corporations,  "the  Church" 
has  in  all  these  matters  lagged  behind,  to 
let  individuals  —  "heretics"  usually  —  do  the 
work  and  often  in  the  very  teeth  of  "the 
Church's"  opposition.  The  archives  of  the  his- 
tory of  man's  progress  show  that  ecclesiastics 
have  thundered  in  opposition,  attempting  to 
silence  the  protester,  while  the  lightnings  of 
prelates  have  tried  to  transfix  the  reformers. 
"The  Church"  went  on  defining  dogma  and 
telling  men  what  they  ought  to  believe,  while 
[121   ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

hanging,  burning,  or  imprisoning  men  who  tried 
to  make  the  world  better  through  their  preach- 
ing that  Christ's  law  in  Church  and  State  is 
the  only  true  democracy. 

The  whole  life  of  William  Bradford  shows 
that  simply  to  label  him  with  the  name  of  any 
sect  or  church,  or  to  appraise  his  life  and  work 
by  calling  him  this  or  that  sort  of  a  Christian, 
is  to  belittle  him.  He  was  a  God-filled  man,  and 
what  God-filled  and  God-driven  men  have  done, 
without  respect  of  name  or  creed,  let  Professor 
J.  H.  Holmes  tell  us: 

"Men  God-driven  are  men  unsatisfied.  The 
hope  of  the  future  lies  in  the  rebellion  of  men 
against  circumstances,  their  splendid  unwilling- 
ness to  leave  things  as  they  are.  God-driven 
men  turned  the  cave  into  the  house  and  the 
house  into  a  temple.  They  took  the  wild  grains 
and  made  wheat  and  corn.  They  took  the  crab- 
bed, wild  fruits,  and  gave  us  apple,  grape,  and 
pear.  They  took  the  simple  roadside  weeds  and 
gave  us  the  crimson  rambler,  and  all  the  glory 
of  our  household  flowers.  They  took  the  rude 
organization  of  the  tribal  clan  and  made  the 
nation.  They  took  the  despotism  and  made  the 
democracy,  though  this  task  is  yet  unfinished. 
The  unrest  and  longing  in  the  heart  of  man  is 
the  voice  of  God.  It  calls  him  from  ease  to 
[   122  ] 


BRADFORD:  TYPICAL  PILGRIM 

effort,  from  the  war  of  appetite  to  the  greater 
war  of  social  development,  from  selfish  grab- 
bing at  personal  goods  to  creative  life.  So  is  the 
word  of  God  a  sharp  sunderer  of  men  from 
many  things  dear  to  them;  so  has  it  been  a  clar- 
ion call  leading  them  to  new  fields  and  new  serv- 
ice — •  a  bugle  note  stiffening  the  sinews  and 
summoning  the  blood  for  pioneer  service  in  new 
ways." 

Bradford  was  always  "up  and  doing,  with  a 
heart  for  any  fate."  Job's  words,  "Though  He 
slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  Him,"  interpret  the 
quality  of  Bradford's  piety  and  faith  in  the  Fa- 
ther of  Eternity.  In  his  "History  "  he  declares, 
in  effect,  that  the  democracy  for  which  one 
would  not  dare  to  be  imprisoned  or  die  is  not 
the  true  metal  acceptable  to  Him  who  sits  "as 
a  refiner."  Of  Bradford,  as  of  Joseph,  it  might 
be  written  that  he  was  ever  ready  to  labor  and  to 
wait  "until  the  time  that  His  word  came;  the 
word  of  the  Lord  tried  him,"  and  he  stood  the 
test. 


CHAPTER  XI 
SCROOBY:  A  BATTLE-GROUND  OF  PRINCIPLES 

One  thing  to  keep  in  mind,  while  reading  the 
Pilgrim  story,  is  to  note  carefully  that  there 
were,  in  the  England  of  1600,  two  centers  of 
Separatism,  Independency,  or  Free  Churchism. 
One  was  in  the  north,  the  other  in  the  south. 
Their  persecutors  also  were,  in  each  case,  quite 
different.  In  London  the  searchings-out,  pun- 
ishments, imprisonment,  and  hangings  of  the 
Free  Churchmen  were  done  by  the  Government, 
and  the  judicial  proceedings  were  more  or  less 
well  known  to  the  public  in  general.  In  one 
sense  it  was  a  national  affair,  and  the  spirit  and 
legal  procedure,  if  not  the  actual  methods,  were 
closely  akin  to  those  of  the  Inquisition  in  Spain. 

In  the  case  of  the  northern  Separatists,  or 
Independents,  who  became  the  "Pilgrim  Fa- 
thers," the  matter  was  wholly  different.  At 
Scrooby  the  troubles  and  vexations  were  for  the 
most  part  petty  annoyances  from  their  neigh- 
bors. 

Scrooby  is  only  one  of  hundreds  of  places  end- 
ing in  the  Danish  by;  for  this  townlet  lies  in  that 
part  of  England  long  under  "Danelaw"  and 
[  124  ] 


SCROOBY 

Danish  kings.  After  the  Norman  Conquest  all 
the  bishops  of  England  were  liegemen  or  feudal 
retainers  of  William  the  Conqueror  and  his  suc- 
cessors. This  sufficiently  explains  the  political 
and  persecuting  character  of  a  bishop  in  Tudor 
times.  Scrooby,  in  Domesday  Book,  was  simply 
a  "hamlet  of  Sudton,  of  Yorke  manor."  To  this 
day  the  rector  of  Scrooby  is  also  in  charge  of  the 
Sutton  church,  which  is  but  a  few  miles  south. 

Should  one  buy  a  railway  ticket  for  Scrooby 
he  may  be  more  fortunate  than  was  the  writer, 
on  one  of  his  visits,  when  at  the  station,  not 
over  thirty  miles  away,  the  young  man  who 
"booked"  you,  or  sold  tickets,  stoutly  insisted 
that  there  was  no  such  place.  He  even  made  me 
spell  the  name.  In  very  few  gazetteers  or  old 
guide-books  will  this  name,  so  long  in  obscur- 
ity, be  found. 

Scrooby  lies  on  the  Great  Northern  road,  as 
we  said  in  our  chapter  on  Brewster,  he  being 
the  post  agent  there.  The  old  Monk's  Mill, 
the  church  of  Saint  Wilfred,  and  a  few  build- 
ings from  Elizabethan  days  are  still  standing. 
The  Manor  House  or  Summer  Palace  of  the 
Archbishop  of  York,  a  semi-fortified  edifice 
duly  defended  by  a  moat,  is  no  more.  It  was 
further  equipped  with  fishponds,  still  traceable, 
but  nearly  filled  up,  while  the  lumpy  and  irregu- 

[    I2S] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

lar  surface  of  the  present  pasture,  in  which  the 
cows  graze,  suggests  that  under  the  greenery 
Hes  much  rubbish  of  old  foundations,  though 
the  edifice  itself  was  of  wood. 

The  antiquary,  John  Leland,  who  was  chief 
appraiser  and  confiscator  for  Henry  VIII,  thus 
describes  this  ancient  structure,  the  quondam 
residence  of  the  Archbishops  of  York — '"a 
great  manor  place  withyn  a  moat  and  builded 
into  courts,  whereof  the  first  is  very  ample, 
and  all  builded  of  tymbre,  saving  the  front  of 
brick." 

The  later  addition  to  the  main  house  is  the 
annex,  which  evidently  served  for  servants' 
quarters,  built  of  brick  and  still  in  use.  In  its 
rooms  upstairs  and  down  are  the  vestiges  of 
the  old  days  when  holy  water,  burning  candles, 
crucifixes,  and  other  religious  furniture  were  in 
common  use,  being  supposed  to  be  necessary  in 
the  worship  of  God. 

In  not  a  few  places  in  Europe  where  old  mon- 
asteries have  been,  but  are  now  gone,  one  can 
find  a  relic  of  the  past,  perhaps  in  some  gable 
end  of  a  farmhouse,  or  part  of  a  wall,  out  of 
which  protrudes  a  knob  of  sculpture,  a  saint's 
head,  a  bit  of  inscription,  or  the  fragment  of  a 
cherub,  it  maybe;  but  at  Scrooby  one  must  go 
out  into  the  cow-house.  This  was  built  much 

[  126] 


m    h- 


iiSf'^ 


!■ 


_]■](: 


SCROOBY 

later.  Here  are  the  mouldings,  wainscot,  and 
carved  oaken  beams  of  the  old  manor  house. 
These,  made  useful  as  rafters,  have  been  duly 
utilized  by  the  spiders  for  their  tapestry,  ful- 
filling the  Scripture  of  Proverbs  30:28.  Whether 
the  creature  mentioned  in  the  old  or  the  new 
version  be  the  one  intended,  we  saw  it  in  both 
forms. 

In  a  word,  where  in  1600  things  wore  the  face 
and  garb  of  their  time  in  architecture  and  sur- 
roundings, the  scene  and  environment  of  to- 
day is  modern.  What  in  1600  was  an  affair  of 
walls,  moats,  gates,  monastery,  mill,  fishponds, 
and  other  things  mediaeval,  is  now  a  plain  farm- 
er's house  and  home.  An  American  mowing  and 
reaping  machine  added  to  the  disenchantment 
or  the  charm  — ■  as  one  may  nominate  it.  The 
old  pen-fold  for  stray  cattle,  and  what  was  once 
the  timber  of  the  stocks,  the  rabbits  caught  in 
the  mown  wheat  for  pie,  the  absence  of  an  inn 
having  lodging-rooms,  and  the  "Flying  Scotch- 
man" dashing  along  on  the  steel  rails  to  Edin- 
burgh, break  the  dream  of  the  past  and  open 
the  door  of  the  present. 

Informers  and  spies  were  very  plentiful  in 
1606.  When  the  Separatists  met  for  simpler 
forms  of  worship,  Bible  study,  and  real  preach- 
ing, the  local  authorities  began  to  be  very  ac- 
[  127  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

tive  In  measures  of  suppression;  yet  these  Free 
Churchmen  kept  on.  They  were  too  eager  in 
their  truth-seeking  to  quail  at  once  before 
danger,  even  when  informers  and  spies  were 
numerous. 

While  no  close  relation  between  the  southern 
and  the  northern  Separatists  — ■  the  former  in 
London  and  the  latter  at  Norwich,  Gainsbor- 
ough, and  Scrooby  —  is  recorded,  the  martyr- 
doms of  several  Free  Churchmen,  in  the  eastern 
counties,  must  have  been  fully  known  to  the 
Scrooby  people,  for  these  judicial  murders  took 
place  in  their  neighborhood.  Bradford  tells  us 
that  at  least  six  Free  Churchmen  suffered 
death,  either  in  London  or  at  Norfolk,  Thet- 
ford,  or  Saint  Edmunds.  Of  the  heroes  of  faith 
who  at  Norwich  were  burned  alive,  not  denying 
their  Lord,  a  poet,  as  true  as  the  later  Tenny- 
son, of  the  charging  troopers  at  Balaklava, 
might  have  sung: 

"Long  shall  their  tale  be  told, 
Yea,  when  our  babes  are  old, 
How  they  rode  onward," 

In  their  chariots  of  fire,  as  did  Elijah. 

At  last,  in  1608,  having  found  by  experience 

that  life  was  intolerable  in  England  unless  they 

violated  conscience  and  denied  the  supremacy 

of  Jesus,  their  Master,  the  Free  Churchmen  re- 

[  128  ] 


SCROOBY 

solved  to  give  up  country,  home,  comfort,  and 
settled  means  of  livelihood.  They  would  cross 
the  seas,  become  foreigners  in  a  strange  land, 
risk  poverty,  and  find  graves  in  alien  soil.  All 
this  because  they  refused  to  be  cowards  or  rene- 
gades, and  had  faith  in  God.  How  they  sought 
flight,  first  by  way  of  Boston,  only  to  be  be- 
trayed and  driven  back,  has  been  often  told. 

Bradford  introduces  us  to  the  catchpole,  a 
character  famous  in  feudal  days  when  men  wore 
armor  and  when  swords  were  part  of  the  daily 
dress  of  men  in  the  privileged  classes,  just  as  I 
saw  the  men  and  the  thing  in  Old  Japan. 

Catchpole  was  the  name  of  a  man  and  also  of 
a  tool  or  human  neck- trap.  He  was  a  sheriff's 
ofiicer  sent  to  arrest  people  who  were  in  debt, 
or  had  infringed  in  some  way  the  laws  of  the 
realm,  especially  those  laws  which,  in  late  Tu- 
dor and  early  Stuart  times,  forbade  a  man  to 
worship  God  as  he  saw  fit.  It  was  the  business 
of  the  shire-reeve,  or  sherifi"of  the  county,  to  see 
that  the  laws  were  carried  out.  The  minion  who 
obeyed  the  sheriff's  orders  was  named  after  his 
instrument.  As  this  functionary  might  have  to 
deal  with  an  accused  person  who  owned  a  sword 
and  knew  how  to  use  it  in  resisting  or  defending 
himself,  the  catchpole  and  his  henchmen  usu- 
ally went  together  in  a  party.  They  had,  for 
[  129  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

their  chief  dependence,  a  long  pole  with  an  iron 
contrivance  of  two  springs  at  the  end,  shaped 
like  the  branches  of  the  letter  Y,  set  in  front  of 
the  letter  O.  The  part  to  be  pushed  and  clasped 
around  the  neck  worked  on  the  springs;  and 
back  of  this  was  the  circle. 

This  tool  was  a  long-range  instrument,  so 
that  the  holder,  when  expert,  could  keep  himself 
beyond  the  reach  of  a  club  or  sword-blade  and 
thus  save  his  own  bacon.  Whether  by  thrust  in 
frontal  attack,  or  by  sneaking  up  behind,  the 
catchpole  would  push  his  steel  trap  upon  the 
neck  of  his  victim.  Its  jaws,  once  snapped  to- 
gether, held  the  man  helpless  and  at  a  distance, 
so  that  he  could  be  easily  disarmed  and  tied. 
An  assistant  carrying  a  rope  would  bind  the 
person  arrested  and  lead  him  off  to  jail.  Brad- 
ford tells  us  how  these  minions  of  the  law,  who 
too  often  proved  themselves  grafters  and  official 
thieves,  caught  the  Separatists  and  dragged 
them  off  to  prison.  It  is  easy  to  picture  to  our 
minds  the  sheriff's  posse  at  the  door  of  the 
humble  cottages  with  rope,  pole,  and  bill,  haling 
men,  women,  and  children  to  jail. 

At  Boston  Bradford  says,  "Being  thus  first, 
by  the  catchpole  officers,  rifled  and  stripped  of 
their  money,  books  and  much  other  goods,  they 
were  presented  to  the  magistrates,  and  messen- 

.[  130  ] 


w    w 

U     E 
W     ^ 

X 

O 

o 


SCROOBY 

gers  sent  to  inform  the  Lords  of  the  Council, 
and  so  they  were  committed  to  ward." 

For  a  month  the  Scrooby  refugees  were  kept 
in  the  Boston  cells,  and  then,  except  seven  of 
the  chief  men  —  Brewster  longer  than  any  — 
were  dismissed  to  find  their  way  home  as  best 
they  could;  probably  being  obliged  to  beg  their 
food  on  the  way.  Like  many  other  Americans 
we  have  stood  inside  these  cells  with  as  much 
admiration  for  the  Puritan  magistrates  —  who 
dealt  lightly  with  these  Free  Churchmen  and 
liberated  them  —  as  contempt  for  the  grafters 
who,  in  the  name  of  the  law,  robbed  these  poor 
people.  In  the  Boston  Congregational  House, 
on  Beacon  Street,  among  several  relics  from 
Scrooby,  one  may  see  the  old  iron  rails  which 
held  in  those  who  were  prisoners  for  con- 
science' sake. 

When  Tudor  England  cast  out  her  children, 
the  exodus  of  the  Scrooby  company  to  Holland 
proved  to  be  the  forlorn  hope  of  the  Free 
Churchmen  of  the  England  of  to-day  and  of  the 
spl"itual  freedom  now  enjoyed  by  the  English 
people.  The  Separatists  did  not,  for  they  could 
not  go  at  once  as  one  body.  They  tried  twice, 
notably,  In  larger  groups,  by  way  of  Boston  In 
the  southeast,  and  from  Grimsby  or  Hull,  to  the 
northeast.  They  failed  and  were  turned  back, 

[  131  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

as  has  been  often  described.  It  was  finally  a 
movement  of  parties,  boat  by  boat,  as  it  were, 
from  a  sinking  ship.  Indeed,  when,  as  Brad- 
ford tells  us,  they  were  surrounded  on  all  sides 
by  spies  and  some  of  their  number  had  been 
clapped  into  prison,  while  inquisition,  bonds, 
and  death  threatened  the  others,  it  was,  by  the 
summer  of  1608,  more  like  leaving  a  vessel  in 
flames  or  foundering  at  sea. 

"Women  first,"  and  the  strong  helping  the 
weak,  is  ship  law,  as  it  was  New  Testament 
law  always;  and  glorious  are  they  who,  even  to 
the  yielding  of  their  own  lives,  if  necessary, 
whether  on  the  Titanic,  or  an  army  transport, 
or  on  ordinary  craft,  uphold  this  law.  The  pas- 
tors of  the  flock  at  Scrooby,  Clifton  and  Rob- 
inson, were  the  last  to  leave  the  craft,  for  "they 
stayed  to  help  the  weakest  before  them." 

This  part  of  the  story  seems  the  real  epic  in 
the  career  of  the  Pilgrims.  They  were  like  the 
migrating  bird,  facing  a  storm  while  flying  to 
its  nest  —  mounting,  sinking,  veering,  riding 
the  billows  of  the  air,  driven  back,  yet  again 
attempting  and  ever  pressing  forw^ard,  while 
steadily  nearing  the  goal.  The  Scrooby  people, 
finally,  in  small  parties  reached  Amsterdam, 
then  the  refuge  of  the  oppressed  of  every  land 
and  clime. 

[  132  ] 


SCROOBY 

Scrooby  stands  In  history  as  one  of  the 
world's  great  battle-grounds  of  principle,  where 
the  human  soul  is  tried,  noble  ideals  are  put  to 
proof,  and  great  principles  illustrated.  In  their 
flight  these  Separatists  led  the  glorious  soul- 
liberty  of  to-day.  After  three  centuries  of  the 
testing  of  their  lofty  ideals  and  their  practical 
polity,  the  twofold  demonstration  is  clear:  that 
pure  religion  has  no  necessary  connection  with 
either  man-made  dogmas  or  with  a  centralized 
religious  corporation;  and  that  separation  of 
politics  from  matters  of  conscience  —  the  Pil- 
grim and  the  American  idea  —  is  the  law  that 
is  peaceably  dictating  the  customs  of  the  whole 
world.  Instead  of  this  form  of  church  govern- 
ment being  "simply  nowhere,"  it  is  rather,  in 
more  or  less  close  adherence  to  apostolical 
methods  and  spirit,  reaching  out  to  the  every- 
where. Whenever  men  sincerely  declare  theirs 
the  motto.  Nisi  Dominus  Frustra — the  spirit 
of  the  127th  Psalm  —  there  will  democracy  in 
the  church  be  the  rule.  So  the  Pilgrims  taught 
and  believed. 

That  which  was  the  animating  principle  of 
the  Separatist  movement  and  the  fundamental 
law  of  the  Free  Churches  can  be  discerned  at 
Scrooby  and  Gainsborough.  It  was  a  battle  of 
forces.  On  the  one  hand  was  the  dogma  of  an 

[  133  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

established  church,  enforcing  its  will  by  physi- 
cal violence,  prison,  exile,  and  death,  with  feu- 
dalism, autocracy,  thrones,  and  kings  behind  it. 
On  the  other  were  faith,  preaching,  teaching, 
popular  and  higher  education,  free  schools  for 
the  people,  the  printing  press,  and  the  instru- 
ments of  reason  and  argument.  The  Separatist 
and  Free  Church  movement  represented  the 
future  and  the  now  fulfilled  prophetic  vision. 
Based  on  the  law  of  God  and  the  life  and  teach- 
ings of  Jesus,  it  was  antipodal  in  spirit  and  ac- 
tion to  that  which  we  have  witnessed  in  Europe 
and  must  face  in  America. 

In  the  organization  of  each  Free  Church  the 
principle  was  that  of  brotherhood;  the  soul  of 
which  is  discerned  in  the  covenant,  without 
which  to-day  no  true  Congregational  church 
can  exist.  Bradford,  writing  in  the  third  per- 
son, has  thus  recorded  the  covenant:  "To  walk 
in  all  His  ways,  made  known,  or  to  be  made 
known  unto  them,  according  to  their  best  en- 
deavors, whatever  it  should  cost  them,  the 
Lord  assisting  them." 

Of  the  London  Free  Churchmen  it  is  re- 
corded of  the  members  in  1616:  "Standing  to- 
gether they  joined  hands  with  each  other  and 
solemnly  covenanted  with  each  other  in  the 
presence  of  Almighty  God  to  walk  together  in 

[  134] 


SCROOBY 

all  God's  ways  and  ordinances,  according  as  he 
had  already  revealed,  or  should  further  make 
known  to  them." 

"  In  His  written  word  only"  was  the  Pilgrim's 
slogan. 


CHAPTER  XII 
TUDOR  ENGLAND  CASTS  OUT  HER  CHILDREN 

An  English  writer  declares  that  the  banishment 
of  the  Independents  marks  the  beginning  of  the 
long  estrangement  between  England  and  her 
American  colonies. 

However  this  may  be,  it  is  well  to  note  the 
new  environment  of  the  exiles  in  Holland,  and 
to  inquire  how  they  were  influenced  during  the 
formative  stage  of  their  career.  We  ought  to 
realize  what  they  saw  and  learned  concerning 
ideas  and  things  which  were  not,  at  that  time, 
prevalent  in  England.  In  a  word,  we  should  in- 
quire how,  by  dwelling  in  an  alien  country,  and 
to  what  extent  thereby,  they  were  fitted  to  be 
makers  of  the  American  Commonwealth. 

There  are  those  who  maintain  that  in  the 
Dutch  Republic  these  wayfarers  did  little  else 
than  "tarry  for  a  night."  The  true  and  suffi- 
cient answer  to  such  a  surmise,  based  on  rather 
narrow  prejudice  or  willful  ignorance,  is  found 
in  Bradford's  history.  On  his  pages  are  scores 
of  admiring  references  to  Holland,  with  grate- 
ful acknowledgment  of  both  Dutch  hospitality 
and  of  Pilgrim  indebtedness.  Yet  Bradford  was 

1 136  ] 


TUDOR  ENGLAND 

no  exception,  but  rather  the  embodiment  of 
Pilgrim  opinion  and  feeling.  He  represented  the 
consensus  of  the  people  of  the  Mayflower  and 
New  Plymouth. 

Still  further,  any  one  intimately  familiar  with 
the  life  and  customs,  the  law  and  literature  of 
the  Dutch,  besides  the  church,  city,  and  na- 
tional life,  in  the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  can  but  confirm  what  Bradford  wrote. 
Such  a  student  discerns,  in  many  of  the  deepest 
things  in  American  life  which  could  not  have 
come  from  England,  both  the  direct  borrowings 
and  the  abundant  importations  from  the  Re- 
public. Among  all  those  who  were  makers  of 
the  American  Commonwealth,  none  exceeded 
the  Pilgrims  as  purveyors;  though  the  fact,  so 
apt  to  mislead,  that  they  were  mostly  English 
and  spoke  the  English  language,  has  made  this 
truth  almost  invisible  in  some  sections  of  the 
United  States.  In  fact,  it  has  camouflaged  the 
whole  subject.  In  this  twentieth  century,  when 
the  two  greatest  of  English-speaking  nations 
are  reafiirming  ancient  friendships,  inheritances, 
and  ambitions,  truth  will  help,  not  hinder,  the 
desired  unity. 

There  were  pilgrim  fathers  before  those 
which  the  Mayflower  brought  over;  and  besides 
the  Free  Churchmen  who  were  publicly  de- 

l  137  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

prlved  of  their  lives,  there  was  a  "lost  battal- 
ion." Far  more  numerous  were  they  who  died 
without  notice  in  the  London  prisons.  They 
rotted  to  death  in  the  damp  and  foul  dungeons 
of  the  Newgate  and  Fleet  jails.  By  1596  the 
names  of  at  least  twenty-five  of  these  victims  — 
twenty  males  and  five  females  —  were  known. 
They  were  true  martyrs,  because  a  mart}^r  is 
one  who  bears  witness  to  the  faith  that  is  within 
him. 

The  English  Government,  after  attempting 
by  prison,  fire,  and  the  gallows,  to  arrest  the 
progress  of  the  Reformation  toward  its  logical 
issues,  tried  official  banishment  and  drove  the 
Dissenters  into  exile.  On  the  two  continents, 
of  America  and  Europe,  the  Free  Churchmen 
found  refuge  and  surcease  from  persecution. 

By  the  year  1597  the  legal  intellect  presiding 
over  the  English  Government  had  reached  a 
lucid  interval,  and  a  policy  for  the  colonization 
instead  of  the  imprisonment  of  Free  Church- 
men was  decided  on.  Certain  "Barrowists," 
loyal  and  true  subjects  of  Queen  Elizabeth, 
petitioned  the  council  to  be  allowed  to  colonize 
Rainea,  one  of  the  Magdalen  Isles,  which  lie 
north  of  Prince  Edward's  Island.  Three  English 
merchants,  who  during  a  voyage  of  fishing  and 
discovery  had  found  these,  now  hoped  to  make 

[  138] 


TUDOR  ENGLAND 

their  fortune  in  colonizing  them.  Having  two 
ships  ready  they  asked  for  leave  to  deport  cer- 
tain mechanics  and  "other  persons  that  are 
noted  to  be  sectaries,  whose  minds  are  continu- 
ally in  an  ecclesiastical  ferment."  The  council 
allowed  the  would-be  planters  to  take  out  four 
Barrowists  from  the  London  prisons  to  America. 
Bonds  had  to  be  given  that  the  four  — •  two  in 
each  ship  —  should  not  return  "unless  they  be 
content  to  reform  themselves  and  to  live  in 
obedience  to  the  laws  ecclesiastical." 

Thus  casting  out  her  children,  even  as  Spain 
had  driven  out  the  Moors  and  France  was  later 
to  banish  the  Huguenots,  and  Germany  the 
Salzburgers  and  Moravians,  Tudor  England 
forbade  the  return  of  these  Independents,  lest 
a  worse  fate  than  prison  might  await  them,  as 
in  the  case  of  Greenwood,  Barrowe,  and  Penry 
—  the  martyrs  of  Congregationalism . 

Let  the  names  of  tliose  selected  stand  in 
honor.  If,  as  was  often  alleged,  the  prisons  of 
Europe  were  emptied  for  the  settlement  of 
America,  the  character  of  the  prisoners  be- 
tokened the  fact  that  in  many  cases  they  were 
incarcerated  in  bonds  because  of  their  deep 
study  of  a  certain  book  written  mainly  in  prison 
or  by  prisoners,  and  largely  by  one  who  was 
proud  to  sign  himself  "the  prisoner  of  Jesus 

[  139  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS ' 

Christ."  The  four  Londoners  selected,  as  per- 
haps the  most  dangerous  to  State  Churchism, 
and  thereby,  as  we  Americans  think,  honored, 
were  Francis  Johnson,  Daniel  Studley,  George 
Johnson,  and  John  Clark.  The  ships  were  the 
Hopewell,  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  tons,  and 
the  Chancewell,  of  seventy  tons.  The  first  was 
sixty  tons  less  in  burthen  than  the  Mayflower, 
and  the  second  ten  tons  larger  than  the  Speed- 
well, of  later  Pilgrim  use  and  fame. 

Possibly  when  the  Clink  prison  doors  opened 
to  let  out  these  four,  who  were  probably  leaders, 
the  other  Free  Churchmen  were  dismissed  also. 
At  any  rate,  it  is  known  that  there  was  soon 
after  this  a  love  feast  at  the  pastor's  house 
in  London.  For  this  sailing  of  four  "Pilgrim 
Fathers"  to  America,  to  win  "freedom  to  wor- 
ship God,"  the  ships  weighed  anchor  at  Graves- 
end,  April  1 8,  1597.  After  lying  at  Falmouth, 
because  of  contrary  winds,  they  faced  the  ocean 
on  the  28th.  An  eight  weeks'  voyage  ended,  June 
23,  by  the  Chancewell  running  on  the  rocks. 
Happily,  on  the  27th,  the  Hopewell  hove  in 
sight.  Yet,  when  all  were  crowded  on  the  one 
ship,  equipped  only  with  old  and  rotten  sails 
and  cordage,  and  a  limited  stock  of  provisions, 
the  only  alternative  was  to  return,  and  by 
September  i  they  were  back  at  Southampton. 
[  140  ] 


TUDOR  ENGLAND 

In  naming  these  bleak  bits  of  land  after  the 
Magdalen,  the  first  discoverers,  or  those  who 
had  experienced  life  on  them,  must  have  had 
in  mind  the  "lost"  nature  suggested  by  the 
name. 

The  four  zealous  Christians  — ■  or  dangerous 
characters  —  were  able  to  reach  London  and 
hide  for  a  fortnight,  with  the  prospect  of  get- 
ting a  rope  around  their  necks  if  caught;  until, 
from  Gravesend,  they  took  ship  for  Amsterdam, 
their  haven  of  safety.  The  church  of  the  Sepa- 
ratists there  was  made  up  largely  of  ex-convicts 
—  a  company  to  which  their  Lord  and  Master 
once  belonged  ■ —  a  convict  by  unjust  human 
law,  but  never  a  criminal.  Of  this  true  church 
Francis  Johnson  was  pastor,  Henry  Ainsworth 
teacher,  Daniel  Studley,  George  Johnson,  and 
M.  Slade  elders,  and  Christopher  Bowman 
deacon.  In  the  midst  of  exile,  imprisonment, 
or  banishment,  their  faith  had  been  born,  and 
now,  on  free  soil,  was  again  given  to  the  world. 
They  were  Free  Churchmen  in  a  free  state — • 
the  Republic  of  the  United  Netherlands.  It 
was  this  "  ancient  church,"  to  which  the  scat- 
tered fragments  of  the  Scrooby  company  upon 
arriving  in  Amsterdam  joined  themselves. 

Yet  they  were  but  one  among  seven  English 
Separatist  congregations,  and  in  a  score  or 

[141  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

more  groups  of  fugitives,  Free  Churchmen  from 
several  lands. 

Of  these  aliens  in  the  city  on  the  Y,  the 
greater  number  consisted  of  Walloons.  These 
French-speaking  Belgians,  arriving  in  Amster- 
dam as  early  as  1574,  are  known  to  have 
had,  by  the  year  1578,  a  well-organized  church, 
with  pastors  and  officers.  After  the  fall  of 
Antwerp  to  the  Spaniards,  in  1585,  this  church 
was  greatly  enlarged  in  numbers.  It  was  but  one 
of  nearly  seventy  Walloon  or  "  French  "  churches 
in  the  Netherlands,  whose  history  is  known. ^ 

From  the  first,  the  relations  of  Robinson  and 
his  people  with  the  Walloons  were  close  and 
warm.  By  the  "French"  churches,  so  often  re- 
ferred to  in  the  Pilgrim  writings,  are  meant,  in 
almost  every  instance,  the  churches  of  the  Bel- 
gian Walloons.  Of  this  septuagint  of  churches, 
there  are  over  a  dozen  still  remaining  and  using 
their  own  speech.  Their  history  both  in  Europe 
and  in  America  has  been,  in  most  English  and 
American  writers,  virtually  lost  under  the  name 
"Huguenot,"  with  whose  churches  they  were 
affiliated  in  doctrine,  for  they  held  to  the  same 
Reformed  faith  and  their  confessions  were  very 
much  alike. 

^  Histoire  et  Influence  des  Eglises  Wallones  dans  les  Pays 
Bas.  Par  D.  F.  Poujol.  Paris,  1902. 

[    142   ] 


TUDOR  ENGLAND 

Wherever  the  early  EngHsh  Separatists  went 
In  any  Dutch  city  they  found  Walloon  con- 
gregations, brethren  in  the  faith;  and  not  a  few 
marriages  took  place  between  the  members  of 
both.  There  are  thousands  of  English-speaking 
people,  especially  Americans,  who  say  and  think 
they  are  descended  from  the  "Huguenots"  of 
France,  when  to  the  Walloons  of  Belgium  be- 
long the  fact,  and,  let  us  hope,  the  honor,  of 
being  their  ancestors. 

f  The  English  refugees  made  their  homes  in 
the  poorer  parts  of  the  Dutch  cities  and  sea- 
ports, which  are  most  closely  connected  with 
Pilgrim  history.  These  are  Dordrecht,  Middel- 
burg,  Amsterdam,  Leyden,  Delfshaven,  Kam- 
pen,  and  Naarden.  In  Amsterdam,  new  land 
had  been  made  by  filling  up  old  spaces  once 
under  water,  such  being  called  "polders"  or 
drained  land.  In  this  new  quarter  clustered 
the  immigrants  or  foreigners,  to  whom  the 
Republic  gave  a  home  and  shelter.  The  city 
authorities,  with  their  excellent  system  of  re- 
lief, helped  these  poor  people  with  food  and 
money,  "without  distinction  of  nation  or  re- 
ligion." Here  were  refugees  from  the  four  na- 
tions of  the  British  Isles,  Brabanters  from 
Belgic  land,  Walloons  and  French,  Westpha- 
lian  Germans,  and  others,  whom  the  native 

1 143  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

citizens  lumped  together  under  the  name  of 
"the  poor  Hussites,"  or  Reformed  folk.  The 
Separatist  congregations  and  the  Pilgrims  were 
only  samples  of  outcasts,  including  also  the 
Jews  who  had  been  driven  from  the  Spanish 
dominions,  to  find  in  the  Republic  shelter  — 
as  the  little  bird  from  the  cruel  hawk. 

Though  the  pastor  of  this  church,  Francis 
Johnson,  still  lay  in  the  Clink  Prison  in  Lon- 
don, their  teacher,  Henry  Ainsworth,  was  active 
in  building  up  the  congregation.  His  friend, 
Roger  Williams,  founder  of  Rhode  Island,  de- 
clared that  Ainsworth  "had  scarce  his  peer 
among  a  thousand  academicians  for  the  scrip- 
ture originals,  and  yet  he  scarce  set  foot  within 
a  college." 

Among  his  most  popular  translations  was 
one  published  in  Amsterdam  in  1612,  entitled 
"The  Book  of  Psalms,  Englished  in  both  Prose 
and  Metre."  This  was  the  Pilgrims'  Hymn- 
Book.  Longfellow,  in  his  "Courtship  of  Miles 
Standish,"  refers  to  this  volume  in  the  hands 
of  Priscilla.  To  illustrate  the  humorous  side  of 
the  Pilgrim  story  and  to  show  how  men's  prej- 
udices make  them  cross-eyed,  one  has  but  to 
consult  a  French  work  of  reference.  La  Grande 
Dictionnaire  Historique.  This  gives  two  bi- 
ographies  of  one  man,    there   imagined   and 

[  144  ] 


TUDOR  ENGLAND 

alleged  by  the  editor  —  a  would-be  Solomon 
—  to  be  separate  personalities — a  sort  of  Dr. 
Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde  — •  "  the  able  commen- 
tator of  the  Scriptures,"  and  the  arch-heretic, 
"a  Brownist  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth." 
The  reader  is,  in  this  French  book,  warned 
against  "confounding  the  two  men,"  though 
the  reality  stands,  in  the  fact  of  the  two  names 
and  the  two  personalities  being  blended  in  the 
one  son  of  the  one  mother.  Both  the  heretic  and 
the  scholar  were  latent,  not  in  twins,  but  in 
the  one  baby  born  at  the  one  moment,  Henry 
Ainsworth,  scholar,  orthodox  Christian,  Sepa- 
ratist, alleged  heretic,  and  servant  of  man  and 
God.  The  "Brownist"  and  the  scholar  cannot 
be  separated. 

What  high  honor  It  was.  In  1891,  to  the 
author  of  this  little  book  about  the  Pilgrims, 
while  in  Europe  and  after  active  attendance 
upon  the  International  Congregational  Council, 
when  visiting  Geneva,  to  be  at  first  refused 
lodging,  because,  though  a  tourist  from  Boston, 
he  was  suspected  of  being  an  ^^ Anabaptiste''^ 
by  the  lady-proprietor  of  the  pension,  who  was 
of  the  Roman  obedience.  This  name,  Congrega- 
tlonalist,  to  the  French  boarding-housekeeper, 
was  something  unspeakably  dreadful. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  feature  of  life  in 

[  145] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

the  new  country,  to  the  Separatists  of  1593, 
and  in  the  years  between,  even  to  1609,  was 
the  almost  absolute  freedom  of  religion.  No  one 
was  persecuted  for  his  belief.  On  the  streets  of 
Amsterdam  one  would  meet  Jews,  Anabaptists, 
Greek  Catholics,  Roman  Catholics,  Turks, 
Moslems,  Agnostics,  and  Protestants  of  all 
sorts,  including  those  just  out  from  England, 
and  there  considered  by  many  as  pestiferous 
people;  though  now  known  as  " Congregation- 
alists."  Amsterdam  was,  for  generations,  the 
target  of  as  much  scorn  and  ridicule  by  State 
Church  wits  and  jesters,  because  of  its  toler- 
ation and  liberality,  as  was  the  United  States, 
by  European  autocrats  and  aristocrats,  for  a 
century  or  more.  Yet  the  men  who,  beyond  sea, 
fed  the  fountains  of  American  freedom,  were, 
for  the  most  part,  educated  in  the  Republic  of 
the  United  Netherlands.  The  Dutch  Govern- 
ment did  not  allow  processions  or  parades  of 
people  in  church  uniform,  or  the  public  carrying 
of  symbols,  such  as  the  crosses,  or  banners,  like 
those  conmion  in  Spain,  Italy,  and  Austria.  Nor 
were  any  other  creeds  and  forms  than  those  in 
the  Reformed  Churches  permitted  public  propa- 
ganda; but,  within  his  own  house,  a  man  could 
think  what  he  pleased  and  worship  as  he  liked. 
His  conscience  was  free.  The  Roman  Catholics 

[  146] 


TUDOR  ENGLAND 

had  church  edifices  with  plain  brick  fronts  and 
their  services  as  of  yore  and  were  unmolested. 
The  refugees  from  Belgic  land  were  as  devout 
and  as  earnest  students  of  the  Bible  as  were  the 
Separatists,  and  had  made  equally  great  sacri- 
fices for  faith  and  principle.  Thus,  all  enjoyed 
the  atmosphere  of  soul  liberty. 

In  the  long  war  for  freedom  the  Dutch  had 
beaten  the  Spaniards  on  land  and  crippled  their 
power  at  sea.  Spain  asked  for  an  armistice.  In 
the  winter  of  1608  the  Spanish  envoys  were 
met  at  the  southern  frontier  by  polite  Dutch 
delegates,  and  the  two  parties  in  sleighs  drove 
to  The  Hague.  After  many  sessions  they  agreed 
upon  a  truce,  which  was  to  last  twelve  years, 
from  1609  to  1621.  It  was  during  this  peaceful 
time  that  the  Scrooby  Separatists,  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers,  dwelt  in  the  land  "where  religion  was 
free  for  all  men." 

In  this  capital  city  and  on  the  site  of  the 
house  of  John  Adams  — ■  the  first  legation  of 
the  United  States  — •  a  bronze  tablet  commem- 
orating three  centuries  of  unbroken  peace  and 
friendship  between  the  Netherlands  and  [the 
potential  and  actual]  United  States,  was  un- 
veiled in  presence  of  Queen  Wilhelmina's  rep- 
resentatives and  the  curators  of  the  Peace 
Palace,  on  September  18,  191 3. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

UNDER  THE  FLAG  OF  SEVEN  STRIPES 

After  noting  the  Genesis  of  the  Pilgrim  move- 
ment, it  is  now  time  to  consider  their  Exodus. 
Until  their  arrival  in  Leyden  we  do  not  know 
very  much  of  their  Leviticus  or  detailed  law  of 
their  organization,  or  much  about  their  book 
of  Numbers  until  they  began  to  be  "mustered" 
(as  the  Hebrew,  which  Bradford  studied,  has  it) 
in  ships  for  their  movement  westward.  The 
analogy  of  their  story  with  that  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament's Pilgrim's  Progress,  is  very  close.  In 
Amsterdam,  in  1609,  the  company  of  Scrooby 
people  were  exiles  from  home,  strangers  In  a 
strange  land.  Let  us  inquire  what  was  their  po- 
litical status. 

They  were  without  the  protection  of  their 
government  and  sovereign.  They  were  no  lon- 
ger under  the  crimson  flag  of  England,  then 
bearing  one  white  cross,  and  very  different  in 
appearance  from  either  the  Royal  Ensign  or  the 
Union  Jack  of  to-day. 

Two  flags  in  the  Republic  waved  over  them. 
The  first  was  the  tricolor,  orange,  white,  and 
blue;  from  the  arms  of  William,  the  Father  of 

[  148  ] 


THE  FLAG  OF  SEVEN  STRIPES 

his  Country;  while  floating  at  every  ship's  miz- 
zen,  on  the  flagstaffs,  and  in  the  towns  and 
cities  and  on  the  church  towers,  was  the  seven- 
striped  flag  of  the  Union  —  emblem  of  the  Fed- 
eral Government,  the  United  States  of  the 
Netherlands.  This  red  and  white  striped  flag, 
prototype  of  that  of  our  own  union  and  federal 
system  — ■  Old  Glory  — •  may  be  seen  on  almost 
every  naval  picture  of  the  historical  painters 
of  old  days.  Proud  of  their  federal  republic  of 
seven  states,  in  the  senate  of  which  each  state, 
large  or  small,  had  one  vote,  the  Dutch,  always 
fond  of  brilliant  colors  and  gay  decoration,  dis- 
played their  flags  by  the  thousands.  In  fact, 
this  was  the  first  time  in  history  —  feudalism 
having  passed  away  — ■  when  there  was  a  coun- 
try without  a  king,  and  law  and  order  without  a 
throne,  that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  a  sover- 
eign, national  flag  which  did  not  belong  to  a 
feudal  or  royal  ruler,  but  was  the  popular  ex- 
pression of  the  nation  at  large,  that  is,  the  com- 
monwealth. No  flag  like  it  had  ever  been  seen 
in  Europe. 

The  Amsterdammers  gloried  in  the  arms  of 
their  prosperous  city,  with  its  shield  on  which 
were  three  silver  crosses.  They  had  driven  out 
the  Spaniard  and,  because  of  this,  they  flaunted 
the  symbol  of  their  victory  all  the  more.  In  fact, 

[  149  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

we  Americans  have  borrowed  from  the  Dutch 
the  words  "flag,"  "stripes,"  "union,"  "staff," 
"bunting,"  and  almost  the  whole  vocabulary 
relating  to  our  national  symbol;  for  these  terms, 
with  their  modern  meaning,  were  in  Dutch  be- 
fore they  were  in  English.  The  words  which  we 
employ  in  our  every-day  speech  and  in  our  cor- 
rect diction  were  in  general  use  among  the 
founders  of  the  Middle  States  before  they  were 
known  or  used  in  England. 

Officially,  peace  had  not  yet  come;  but  the 
Twelve  Years'  Truce  had  been  signed.  It  was 
during  this  tranquil  period,  from  1609  to  1 621, 
that  the  Pilgrims  were  to  live  in  the  Republic  in 
peace.  They  were  free,  on  the  one  hand,  from 
both  Tudor  and  Stuart  kings  and  bishops;  and, 
on  the  other,  from  Spanish  tyrants,  bigots,  and 
inquisitors. 

For  the  children  and  young  folks  the  strange 
land  now  entered  was  a  veritable  new  world. 
"Old  heads  on  young  shoulders"  may  be  possi- 
ble in  caricature,  but  not  in  reality.  The  boys 
and  girls  were  not,  could  not  be,  interested,  ex- 
cept in  a  vague  and  remote  way,  in  what  filled 
the  souls  of  their  elders.  They  were  more  influ- 
enced by  what  was  visible,  audible,  and  tangi- 
ble. They  noticed  the  dikes  and  dams,  storks 
and  windmills,  wooden  shoes,  costumes  rich  in 

[  ISO] 


THE  FLAG  OF  SEVEN  STRIPES 

color,  the  metal  headdresses  of  the  women  — 
the  glorified  crown  of  thorns  from  early  Chris- 
tian days  —  and  the  splendid  town  halls.  The 
Stad  Huys  in  Dutch  became  the  "State 
House"  on  American  tongues,  and  this  altered 
pronunciation  is  but  one  specimen  of  scores  of 
Dutch  names  and  words  the  Pilgrims  brought 
to  our  land.  They  heard  the  carillons  in  the 
church  towers,  and  listened  to  the  psalm  tunes 
and  song  music  of  the  chimes,  and  the  bells  that 
struck  also  the  hours  and  quarters.  The  curious 
houses  with  their  gables  and  crowsteps,  the 
bas-reliefs  of  Old  Testament  scenes  in  the  Jews' 
quarter  —  of  Moses  and  Sinai,  of  Jacob  dream- 
ing, and  the  angel-ladder,  of  Elijah  fed  by  the 
ravens  ■ —  the  tiled  fireplaces,  and  all  the  won- 
derful things  which  had  already  blossomed  into 
common  life  from  contact  with  the  Orient; 
the  games  and  sports  of  the  men  and  women, 
the  skates  and  sleds,  the  golf,  and  the  kermis 
fun,  were  all  of  interest. 

What  they  never  saw  or  heard  of  were 
"schnapps"  — ■  a  German  word  —  or  "Knick- 
erbocker"—  2i  name  coined  later  in  America 
— •  besides  things,  imaginary  things,  associated 
with  Holland  only  in  English  and  American 
vulgar  tradition  or  in  our  Anglicized  history. 
With  the  goodies  and  cookies,  the  waffles  and 

[  151 1 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

finger  cakes,  the  stoves  and  manifold  home 
comforts,  they  were  delighted,  for  against  these 
there  was  no  Pilgrim  law. 

They  found  that  people  turned  to  the  right 
instead  of  to  the  left;  and  that  the  Dutch  took 
public  and  official  care  of  their  orphans,  widows, 
wounded  soldiers,  and  aged  couples,  not  leav- 
ing these  to  private  charity. 

Bradford  writes  glowingly  of  the  "many  and 
goodly  and  fortified  cities  strongly  walled  and 
guarded  with  troops  of  armed  men,"  and  then 
sets  in  striking  contrast  his  own  company  of 
poor  people  who  were  plain  rustics  and  villagers. 
All  this  power  and  so  great  prosperity  In  the 
Low  Countries  were  very  Impressive  to  the  ex- 
iles, and  perhaps  Brewster  was  the  only  trav- 
eled person  among  them.  Thus  does  Bradford 
himself  tell  the  story  In  epitome:  "For  though 
they  saw  fair  and  beautiful  cities  flowing  with 
abundance  of  all  sorts  of  wealth  and  riches,  yet 
it  was  not  long  before  they  saw  the  grim  and 
ghastly  face  of  poverty  coming  among  them  like 
an  armed  man  with  whom  they  must  buckle  and 
encounter  and  from  whom  they  could  not  fly." 

Nevertheless,  with  both  grit  and  grace, 
"armed  with  faith  and  patience  and  by  God's 
assistance,  they  prevailed  and  got  the  vic- 
tory." 

[  152  ] 


THE  FLAG  OF  SEVEN  STRIPES 

What  was  the  political  status  of  these  Eng- 
lish people,  thus  cast  out  from  the  country  they 
loved,  and  by  the  sovereign  to  whom  they  were 
loyal?  One  might  think  them  embittered  by 
their  experiences.  But  no!  On  this  point  they 
had  taken  early  care  to  fortify  themselves,  a 
dozen  years  before,  when  the  first  exiles  reached 
the  country  "where  religion  was  free  for  all 
men."  Their  place  in  history  is  clear. 

In  1596  a  little  book  dropped  from  the  press 
in  Amsterdam.  Its  title-page  ran  thus:  "A  true 
Confession  of  Faith  and  Humble  Acknowledge- 
ment of  the  Allegiance  which  we,  her  Majesties 
Subjects,  falsely  called  Brownists,  doo  hould 
toward  God  and  yeild  to  her  Majestic  and  all 
others  that  are  over  us  in  the  Lord.  .  .  .  Pub- 
lished for  the  cleering  of  ourselves  from  those 
unchristian  slanders  of  heresie,  schisme,  pryde, 
obstinacie,  disloyaltie,  sedition,  &c.  which  by 
our  adversaries  are  in  all  places  given  out 
against  us,"  etc. 

In  a  word,  it  was  not  the  Salem  Puritans  of 
1630,  only,  who  loved  the  country  which  had 
cast  them  out.  Those  forced  to  become  "pil- 
grims and  strangers  upon  the  earth"  loved  their 
country  too. 

Amsterdam  was  a  world  in  itself,  for  here 
Europe  and  Asia,  the  Orient  and  the  Occident, 

[153] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

had  their  point  of  meeting.  No  other  city  in 
western  Europe  could  show  along  its  wharves 
a  greater  number  or  more  interesting  variety  of 
ships  sailing  out  to  the  Far  East  and  away  to 
other  strange  countries.  Every  day  there  were 
fresh  arrivals  in  the  harbor,  bringing  spices, 
silks,  drugs,  perfumes,  fruits,  confectionery,  and 
all  sorts  of  curious  things  from  the  tropics. 
Quite  early  began  the  Dutch  distinction  be- 
tween India  on  the  mainland  —  almost  a  conti- 
nent in  itself —  and  Insulinde,  or  island  India, 
while  the  shops  put  out  the  sign,  "Oriental 
and  Colonial  wares."  It  was  near  the  water- 
front that  Rembrandt  and  the  later  brilliant 
array  of  Dutch  artists  found  their  most  pictur- 
esque themes.  Turks,  Arabs,  Javanese,  Japa- 
nese, Chinese,  South  Sea  Islanders,  and  the  In- 
dians of  North  and  South  America  were  found 
here  in  their  quaint  costumes,  curious  dress 
and  weapons,  and  odd  gestures  and  language. 
One  of  the  sights  enjoyed  by  the  children  was 
the  curious  round  building,  erected  in  1482,  and 
still  in  use  as  the  harbor-master's  office.  It 
stands  on  the  Prince  Henry  Quay,  in  Amster- 
dam, and  is  still  called  the  "Shriekers'  Tower," 
from  the  fact  that  here  in  old  days  gathered 
the  weeping  wives  and  children,  relatives  and 
friends  of  those  who  sailed  away  to  America  or 

[  154] 


THE  FLAG  OF  SEVEN  STRIPES 

to  the  Far  East.  In  our  time  the  steam  launches, 
tugs,  and  steamers  make  the  scene  even  more 
impressively  what  it  has  always  been  —  the 
busiest  place  on  the  water-front  of  the  world's 
most  hospitable  city. 

It  was  from  this  point  that  Henry  Hudson, 
in  the  Dutch  ship  Half  Moon,  had  sailed  away 
only  a  few  weeks  before,  on  March  20,  1609.  He 
went  out  to  "thread  the  needle,"  if  possible,  by 
discovering  the  northeast  passage  to  China; 
but  he  turned  back  and  sailed  westward  into 
American  history  by  locating  New  Netherland. 

Among  other  things  were  the  free  public 
schools  in  which  both  sexes  were  taught,  the 
girls  receiving  the  same  education  as  the  boys. 
This  was  not  the  case  in  England,  and  even 
in  Massachusetts  girls  were  not  admitted  to 
the  public  schools  until  after  the  Revolution. 
In  Holland,  too,  because  the  girls  were  thus 
trained  to  other  than  the  purely  domestic  du- 
ties, the  women  took  charge  of  the  charities, 
such  as  the  hospitals,  orphanages,  and  the 
homes  for  old  men  and  women  and  aged  cou- 
ples. The  struggle  for  freedom  and  independ- 
ence had  greatly  developed  the  spirit  of  the 
women.  Even  in  war  they  showed  themselves 
as  brave  as  the  men,  notably  at  the  siege  of 
Alkmaar,  Haarlem,  and  Leyden.  The  statue  of 

[15s] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

Kenau  van  Hasselaer,  in  Rotterdam,  who 
drilled  a  company  of  women  soldiers,  tells  its 
own  story.  Her  female  warriors  formed  a  "Bat- 
talion of  Death,"  like  those  in  modern  Russia 
and  Poland.  The  social  condition  of  Dutch 
women  and  their  status  in  law  were  strikingly  in 
contrast  to  those  given  them  in  England,  which 
was  unchanged  until  almost  within  our  own 
memories. 

The  American  in  Holland,  who  knows  well 
his  old  New  York,  Albany,  Schenectady, 
Kingston,  and  the  towns  along  the  Mohawk 
and  Raritan  valleys,  recognizes  in  these  nu- 
merous originals  of  things  which,  though  now 
American,  were  Dutch  in  old  colonial  days. 
Certainly  the  delights  of  the  antiquarian  are 
great.  There  are  several  streets,  or  alleys,  in 
Amsterdam,  the  names  of  which  reveal  the 
former  presence  of  the  English  Separatists,  the 
most  notable  being  the  Brownisten  Gang,  or 
Little  Street  of  the  Brownists. 

The  Scrooby  people,  Robinson's  congrega- 
tion, stayed  only  a  year  in  Amsterdam,  because 
of  quarrels  which  broke  out  in  "the  ancient 
church."  The  cause  of  this  and  other  troubles 
lay  in  the  fact  that,  in  breaking  away  from 
priests  and  bishops,  these  Free  Churchmen  had 
gone  too  far  in  the  opposite  direction  of  scruti- 

[156] 


THE  FLAG  OF  SEVEN  STRIPES 

nizing  each  other's  faults  and  bringing  them  to 
public  inquisition. 

Of  the  incident  of  the  quarrel  about  a  wo- 
man's clothes  and  the  fault  found  with  the  pas- 
tor's wife  because  she  dressed  too  fashionably 
and  slept  in  bed  too  long  on  Sunday  morning, 
we  have  told  in  "The  Pilgrims  in  Their  Three 
Homes."  This  was  not  the  cause,  but  it  was  the 
occasion  of  Robinson's  leaving  Amsterdam. 
The  camel's  back  was  already  overloaded,  and 
the  collision  of  the  church  crank  —  a  brother 
with  "a  crackt  brain"  was  what  some  called 
him  —  with  Mrs.  Johnson,  who  had  been  a 
dressmaker  in  London,  broke  the  back  of  the 
camel;  which,  in  this  case,  was  the  Scrooby 
company.  From  the  very  first  the  real  and  un- 
derlying reason  was  that  those  Independents, 
or  Separatists,  who  had  come  to  Amsterdam 
before  Robinson  and  the  Scrooby  people  ar- 
rived, had  formed  a  Barrowist,  but  not  a  true 
Congregational  church;  that  is,  theirs  was  not 
a  church  in  which  the  seat  of  authority  or 
power  was  not  in  minister  or  teacher,  elder  or 
officer  of  any  kind,  but  in  the  congregation. 

In  this  latter  view  and  practice,  all  were 
brethren.  No  church  authority  existed,  save  as 
it  was  bestowed  by  the  people  who  had  taken 
the  covenant,  their  supreme  allegiance  being 

[  157] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

to  Jesus  the  Christ.  Everything  In  the  real  life 
of  the  congregation  was  decided,  not  by  the 
vote  of  the  "parish,"  but  by  the  vote  of  the 
members  of  the  church;  for  it  was  as  true  then 
as  now,  and  as  in  New  Testament  days,  with 
those  whom  Christ  had  made  free, 
"The  crowning  fact, 

The  klngliest  act, 

Of  freedom  is  the  freeman's  vote"; 

and  whether  in  Church  or  State,  where  intelli- 
gent voters  are  educated  to  their  duties,  democ- 
racy is  the  best  rule;  while  even  in  republics 
where  autocracy  has  gained  control,  govern- 
ment is  parasitic  and  not  from  the  roots  of 
New  Testament  religion. 

The  Amsterdam  church  was  one  rather  on 
the  Presbyterian  model,  in  which  the  elders  had 
more  authority  than  the  congregation. 

For  over  a  century  the  Separatists  —  always 
called  "Brownists"  by  the  Reformed  and  State 
Church  people  —  remained  in  Amsterdam  as  a 
distinct  body.  The  Reverend  John  Canne,  who 
succeeded  Ainsworth,  was  also  a  mighty  stu- 
dent of  the  Scriptures.  He  wrote  Biblical  com- 
mentaries, and  was  the  first  scholar  to  add 
those  marginal  references  to  the  Bible  which  are 
now  so  familiar  and  In  general  use.  In  1662  their 
meeting-house  was  destroyed  by  fire,  but  they 

[  158] 


THE  FLAG  OF  SEVEN  STRIPES 

built  another,  with  a  parsonage.  Bruinisten 
Gang  is  the  Dutch  form  for  Brownists'  Alley. 
It  runs  between  the  canal  and  Brande  Steeg 
(Place  of  Burning),  where  the  fanatical  monks, 
from  1522  to  1578,  under  Spanish  rule,  amused 
themselves  with  the  auto  da  //,  then  so  com- 
mon in  Spain  —  the  cremation  of  Anabap- 
tists and  other  Bible-reading  people.  Here  the 
Separatists  worshiped  until  1701,  when  the  sur- 
vivors, a  feeble  remnant,  were  received  into 
the  English  Reformed  Church  in  the  Beguyn 
Hof,  or  Court  of  the  Beguyn  nuns,  which  is  just 
off  the  Kalver  Street. 

In  this  historic  edifice,  in  which  American 
and  other  English-speaking  people  delight  to 
gather  and  worship,  there  was  unveiled  in 
1909,  in  celebration  of  the  tercentenary  of  the 
Pilgrims'  arrival,  by  the  Chicago  Congrega- 
tional Club,  a  bronze  memorial  tablet.  It  con- 
tains the  names  of  AInsworth,  Johnson,  Rob- 
inson, Brewster,  and  Bradford,  with  the  classic 
quotation,  "Freedom  of  religion  for  all  men." 

In  1915,  after  the  old  meeting-house  and 
parsonage  In  Brownlsts'  Alley — ^  sold  in  1714 
and  changed  into  a  tenement  house  —  had 
served  its  varied  purposes,  it  was  torn  down. 
On  its  site  was  erected  a  building  for  the  "Peo- 
ple's Institution,"  by  the  Society  for  the  Salva- 

[  159] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

tion  of  the  People  {Tot  Heil  des  Folks).  In  the 
debris  several  old  relics,  tiles,  metal  pieces, 
etc.,  were  found,  recalling  memories  of  the  past. 
Yet  Amsterdam  has  many  other  memorials  of 
tliese  exiles,  which,  however,  it  needs  a  cicerone 
to  point  out. 

Robinson's  real  purpose  in  leaving  Amster- 
dam was  to  form  a  true  New  Testament  or 
Congregational  church,  in  which  all  authority 
lay  in  the  people  who  had  taken  the  covenant. 
To  this  resolve  he  was  hastened  and  spurred  on 
by  the  petty  matter  of  the  "clothes  question," 
and  the  accusation  against  pastor  Johnson's 
wife.  He  feared  lest,  in  a  small  controversy,  the 
greater  blessing  of  soul-liberty  might  be  lost, 
and  a  mighty  enterprise  be  wrecked  on  a  little 
snag,  unworthy  of  even  the  name  of  rock. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
LEYDEN  AND  AMERICAN  HISTORY 

Once  settled  down  ia  Leyden  the  Scrooby 
party,  of  a  hundred  or  so,  were  more  or  less  sep- 
arated for  several  years,  but  on  May  5,  161 1, 
a  deed  was  signed  giving  them  possession  of  a 
fine  lot  of  land  in  Belfry  Alley,  opposite  Saint 
Peter's  great  church.  On  this,  Jepson,  the  car- 
penter, built  twenty-three  little  dwellings  and 
the  larger  pastor's  house,  and  here  abode  the 
chief  single  group  of  people  in  Robinson's 
congregation. 

The  latter-day  descendants  of  the  Pilgrims, 
in  visiting  the  Dutch  archives  and  looking  at 
the  signatures  of  the  betrothed  and  wedded 
among  their  ancestors,  may  be  amused  and 
perhaps  disgusted  at  the  quaint  spelling  of 
the  English  names;  as,  for  example,  "Mayke 
Botler,"for  "Mary  Butler."  "Mayke"  is  the 
Dutch  pet  name  for  "Mary"  and  perhaps  when 
in  Holland  she,  or  her  lover  gave  that  form  to 
the  scribe. 

But  let  us  remember  that  neither  blushing 
maidens  nor  bold  swains  are  noted  for  clear 
enunciation  when  answering  the  questions  of 

[  161  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

census  takers  or  of  city  registration  clerks,  who 
have  their  own  troubles.  Yet  apart  from  the  lin- 
guistic or  aural  defects  of  the  Dutch  penman  or 
their  apparent  stupidity  —  people  whose  lan- 
guage we  do  not  speak  or  understand  are  usu- 
ally, by  natives,  thought  to  be  slow  of  intellect 
—  the  uneducated  person  usually  speaks  louder, 
as  if  that  would  help  the  poor  "foreigner"!  We 
must  not  forget  how  the  actual  spoken  English 
sounded  three  centuries  ago.  Its  vocables  dif- 
fered much  from  those  which  meet  our  ears  to- 
day, except  as  we  may  hear  them  from  Hiber- 
nian laborers  or  Irish  friends  or  servant  maids; 
or  even  from  the  American  highlanders,  the 
"mountain  whites"  of  the  Southern  States. 

It  is  easy  enough  to  laugh  at  the  so-called 
blunders  and  misspelling  of  Dutch  clerks,  who 
tried  to  catch  the  sound  of  English  personal, 
family,  and  geographical  names  that  seemed  so 
odd  and  uncouth  in  their  ears.  Apart  from 
the  fact  that,  under  such  circumstances,  young 
folks,  who  are  lovers,  are  not  usually  experts 
in  audibility  or  enunciation,  we  must  not  for- 
get that  the  English  of  these  people  was  not 
pronounced  as  it  is  in  our  day  by  cultivated 
Londoners.  Far  from  it.  These  immigrants  were 
country  folk,  and,  since  England  lacked  a  gen- 
eral system  of  elementary  public  schools,  the 

[  162] 


LEYDEN  AND  AMERICAN  HISTORY 

variation  in  the  dialects  spoken  in  Kent,  York- 
shire, and  the  midland  counties  was  very  great. 

One  must  read  Bradford  to  see  how  English 
was  pronounced  in  Queen  Elizabeth's  time,  or, 
better,  listen  to  an  Irishman  talk.  As  spoken 
three  hundred  years  ago  our  vernacular  was 
very  different  in  sound  from  that  heard  to-day. 
Add  to  this  the  fact  that,  among  the  Separa- 
tists, or  those  joined  in  marriage  to  them  be- 
fore 1620,  were  Scotch,  Welsh,  Irish,  Flemings, 
Dutch,  and  Walloons  — •  as  the  records  show. 

One  easily  understands  the  case  who  reads 
Bradford  critically  and  sees  how  he  spells  and 
pronounces  certain  words,  such  as  "viage" 
(voyage),  "foule"  (fowl),  "imbrases"  (em- 
braces), "tooke"  (took,  i.e.,  tuke),  "'aire"  (air), 
"diate"  (diet),  "salvage"  (savage),  "firie" 
(fiery),  "shuch"  (such),  "wrasthng"  (wres- 
tling), "Henery  "  (Henry),  etc.  He  quickly  gets 
a  general  idea  of  how  some  of  these  names  — 
sounding  so  uncouth  in  foreign  ears  —  were  ac- 
tually pronounced  three  hundred  years  ago  and 
quite  different  from  to-day.  When  to  this  is 
added  a  Dutchman's  difficulty  of  catching  the 
local  or  dialectic  pronunciation  of  English 
place-names,  often  so  contrary  to  that  of  their 
spelling,  or  as  taught  in  our  American  schools, 
or  heard  even  in  the  conversation  of  educated 

[  163  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

people,  we  may  have  more  sympathy  with 
those  penmen  who  honestly  tried  to  be  accu- 
rate. Possibly  we  may  do  this,  even  though  the 
laugh  may  be  turned  upon  ourselves  or  our  an- 
cestors. 

All  American  people  ought  to  know  about 
Leyden,  the  second  city-home  of  the  Pilgrims, 
and  the  only  city  in  which  these  North  Coun- 
try people  of  England  dwelt  long  and  happily. 
Here  they  consolidated  their  interests,  scruti- 
nized new-comers  into  their  company,  nour- 
ished their  strength,  shaped  their  doctrines, 
and  fixed  both  their  church  and  civic  polity. 
This  latter  was,  perhaps,  largely  influenced 
by  Dutch  municipal  life,  even  as  the  initial 
procedure  of  the  early  Christians  was  shaped 
by  the  Greek  city  governments  and  society  — • 
as  Dr.  Edwin  Hatch,  in  his  Bampton  Lectures, 
has  demonstrated.  Here,  more  than  in  England 
or  anywhere  else  in  the  worlds  are  their  earliest 
autographs,  their  records,  and  their  sleeping 
dust. 

No  city  In  all  Europe  Is  so  closely  connected 
with  American  origins,  or  has  had,  through  the 
education  here  of  many  eminent  men  of  both 
Great  Britain  and  America,  a  more  vital  Influ- 
ence on  the  political  development  of  those  col- 
onies which  became  the  United  States  of  Amer- 

[  164 1 


LEYDEN  AND  AMERICAN  HISTORY 

lea.  The  first  settlers  of  the  Middle  States,  driven 
out  by  Spanish  autocracy,  were  in  the  same 
brotherhood  and  community  of  faith  as  the 
Pilgrims.  In  Leyden  these  Belgic  Puritans,  from 
1567  — ■  that  is,  a  generation  or  more  previous 
to  the  Pilgrims  — •  had  dwelt  and  gathered 
strength.  From  1609  to  1620  the  undivided  Pil- 
grim congregation  lived,  worked,  and  worshiped. 
Here  in  16 19  they  saw,  with  their  own  eyes,  the 
fort  built  on  the  Broadway  and  garrisoned  by 
the  local  mercenaries  of  one  of  the  two  prov- 
inces which,  under  Barneveldt,  threatened  dis- 
union and  secession.  These  they  saw  yield  to 
the  might  of  the  Union  army,  under  the  red 
and  white  striped  flag,  and  led  by  Maurice. 
Dismantling  and  surrender  to  superior  force 
meant  the  triumph  of  union  and  the  vindica- 
tion of  national  supremacy. 

The  boys  and  girls  could  understand  patriot- 
ism and  even  partisanship,  in  both  civic  and 
military  matters,  better  than  the  points,  even 
the  main  ones,  of  controversial  theology.  When 
Bradford  tells  us  that  Robinson  "began  to  be 
terrible  to  the  Arminians,"  his  reference  is  as 
much  to  a  political  as  to  a  theological  party, 
without  allusion  to  anything  cogitated  since 
John  Wesley's  time. 

Rembrandt,  the  mighty  painter  of  Puritan- 

1 165] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

ism,  who,  out  of  light  and  shade,  created  a  new 
world  of  art,  was  born  in  Leyden  in  1606;  and 
with  him,  it  is  quite  possible,  some  of  the  Pil- 
grim boys  and  girls  played  or  were  schoolmates. 

Scores  of  the  English  Puritan  leaders,  also, 
in  Stuart  times  — ■  especially  the  founders  of 
Connecticut,  refugees  from  Charles  and  Laud 
—  found  haven  and  inspiration  in  the  Repub- 
lic. 

As  from  a  hive  there  swarmed  off  from 
Leyden  colony  after  colony  in  flight  to  the 
American  shores.  After  the  Speedwell  followed 
the  other  Pilgrim  ships,  the  Fortune  and  the 
Handmaid,  the  Ann  and  Little  James.  Until 
1629,  when  the  last  party  left,  the  Separatists 
voyaged  oversea  or  left  the  Dutch  city  and 
country  for  their  old  homes. 

Perhaps  in  no  one  course  of  action  were  Sep- 
aratists more  nobly  persistent  and  more  truly 
consistent  than  in  refusing  all  favors  in  religion 
from  the  civic  authorities,  whether  English  or 
Dutch,  or  any  aid  from  funds  derived  from 
taxation.  Thus  they  first  solidly  established 
that  principle  which  has  become  the  settled 
policy  of  the  American  people  in  every  part  of 
the  land  — ■  no  public  money  for  the  teaching 
of  sectarian  religion.  The  Pilgrims  not  only  did 
not  ask,  but  they  would  not  have  received,  any 
[  166] 


LEYDEN  AND  AMERICAN  HISTORY 

gift  or  material  favor  from  city  or  state.  "They 
stood  on  their  own  legs,"  said  a  Leyden  pro- 
fessor to  the  writer.  They  paid  their  own  rent, 
thankful  enough  for  the  soul-liberty  denied 
them  in  their  own  land.  In  this,  they  fixed  the 
American  policy,  the  law  which  is  for  all  time  — 
the  complete  separation  of  Church  and  State, 
and  no  division  of  the  public  money  for  the 
teaching  of  the  sectarian  phases  of  religion.  On 
this  question  —  more  consistently  followed  in 
the  Middle  States  than  in  the  Southern  and 
Eastern  —  the  great  statesmen,  Fillmore  and 
Seward  in  1840,  parted,  first  in  policy  and  then 
in  friendship. 

By  the  year  1661  almost  all  of  the  once  young 
people  of  Robinson's  congregation  had  gone 
away,  returned  to  England,  had  married  into 
Dutch  families,  had  become  old,  or  had  died. 
Thirty-five  returned  to  England  in  1629,  and 
sixty  in  1630.  By  1662  the  last  vestige  of  the 
Separatists  had  disappeared  from  Leyden.  One 
notable  Welsh  family,  the  Montgomery s,  re- 
turned to  Wales.  In  1684  the  twenty- three 
little  wooden  houses  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  in 
Leyden,  built  by  Jepson,  the  carpenter,  were 
taken  down,  and  the  present  structure,  the 
Pesyn  Hof,  was  erected.  It  was  the  gift  of  Jean 
Pesyn,  a  Walloon.  In  the  space  within  the  Ao/, 

[  167] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

or  court,  are  still  the  little  brick  houses  in  which 
are  the  homes  of  aged  married  couples.  There 
are  forty  of  such  hojs  in  Leyden. 

Meanwhile  in  this  city,  so  famous  for  its  cloth 
manufacture,  sundry  English,  Scottish,  Welsh, 
and  Irish  folk  dwelt  or  traded.  It  is  written  by 
the  historian  Stevens,  "The  English,  who  set- 
tled in  this  town,  were  genteel  families,  whom 
the  superior  advantages  of  education  [in  the 
University]  drew  hither  in  considerable  num- 
bers ;  and  there  were  besides  a  few  cloth  manu- 
facturers and  other  artizans." 

Above  all  others  the  Scots  had  frequented 
Leyden,  even  before  the  future  founders  of  the 
States  of  New  York  and  Massachusetts  dwelt  in 
this  city.  In  1609,  at  the  joint  expense  of  the 
States  of  Holland  and  the  City  of  Leyden,  a 
Scottish  church  was  instituted  and  endowed, 
and  the  Reverend  Robert  Durie  was  made  pas- 
tor. After  his  death,  in  1616,  other  ministers 
followed  in  course,  among  whom,  in  1688,  was 
the  Reverend  William  Carstairs,  domestic  chap- 
lain and  adviser  of  the  Dutch  king,  William  III. 
This  grandson  of  the  greatest  champion  of  free- 
dom of  conscience  in  modern  times,  William 
the  Silent,  was  that  king  of  Great  Britain  under 
whom  the  American  colonists  and  English  Free 
Churchmen  enjoyed  unusual  religious  liberty. 

[168] 


LEYDEN  AND  AMERICAN  HISTORY 

In  direct  continuity  of  worship  and  service  this 
Scottish  church  in  Leyden,  except  with  an  in- 
terval during  the  French  Revolution,  continued 
until  1805. 

Remembering  that  the  Pilgrims  did  not  ask 
and  would  not  receive  aid  in  religious  matters 
from  the  state  or  city,  we  note  that  the  Dutch 
authorities  always  provided  liberally  for  the 
other  English-speaking  people  dwelling  in  Ley- 
den. In  the  one  edifice,  though  meeting  at 
different  hours,  the  French  and  German  Re- 
formed people,  who  were  in  the  city  for  busi- 
ness or  education,  assembled  for  divine  wor- 
ship. 

Brewster  and  others  in  the  Pilgrim  company 
were  able  to  eke  out  their  scant  incomes  with 
the  fees  gained  by  teaching  the  English  lan- 
guage to  some  of  these  fellow  aliens,  chiefly  Dan- 
ish and  German.  The  different  buildings  thus 
assigned  the  three  sets  of  strangers  in  cosmo- 
politan Leyden  for  religious  use  were  the  Saint 
Catherine  Gasthuis,  from  1609  to  1622;  the 
Jerusalem  Kirk,  from  1622  to  1644;  and  the 
Beguyn  Chapel,  from  1644  to  1805.  By  that 
date  there  were  few  or  no  British  people  resi- 
dent in  the  city.  In  1822  the  beautiful  tower 
of  the  Beguyn  Chapel  was  pulled  down,  and  in 
the  rebuilt  and  enlarged  edifice  were  installed 

[169] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS  ' 

the  University's  splendid  Anatomical  Museum 
and  Library. 

Yet  during  all  the  time  of  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries,  as  one  may  read  in  Eng- 
lish history,  plays,  and  novels,  came  many  peo- 
ple from  the  four  nations  in  the  British  Isles. 
They  sent  their  sons  thither  for  education  in 
Leyden,  or  they  lived  there  while  their  children 
were  at  school.  The  Whigs  in  politics,  the  Free 
Churchmen,  and  the  students  who  became  Non- 
Conformist  ministers,  were  especially  numer- 
ous. Peacock's  index  of  students,  from  1572  to 
1872,  gives  the  names  of  several  thousand  of 
these  young  men,  to  whom  full  freedom  of  con- 
science was  denied  In  Great  Britain. 

Shut  out  of  the  universities  of  England  be- 
cause of  the  triumph  of  sectarian  and  political 
religion,  or  attracted  by  the  fame  in  medicine 
of  the  world-renowned  Boerhave  (whose  statue 
the  tourist  may  recognize  to-day  soon  after 
leaving  the  railway  station),  or  by  the  emi- 
nence of  professors  in  the  legal  world,  the  young 
Britishers  flocked  Into  the  Netherlands,  to  Am- 
sterdam, Leyden,  Utrecht,  or  Groningen.  Al- 
most all  of  these  were  opposed  to  the  autocracy 
of  the  Stuarts  and  the  German  kings  of  Eng- 
land. More  especially  the  champions  of  the 
American  cause  In  Parliament  had  been  edu- 
[  170  ] 


LEYDEN  AND  AMERICAN  HISTORY 

cated  in  Holland.  Sitting  at  the  feet  of  great 
teachers  in  the  Dutch  Republic  they  reinforced 
the  principles  of  British  liberty.  Thus,  tem- 
pered by  Scotch,  Dutch,  and  Welsh  democracy, 
as  well  as  enriched  by  their  common  inherit- 
ances from  Anglo-Saxon  freedom,  these  men  of 
intellect  formed  a  noble  line  of  Liberals,  who 
were  our  friends  during  the  American  Revolu- 
tion. They  fought  peaceably  for  what  were  es- 
sentially the  same  principles  as  those  for  which 
Patrick  Henry,  George  Washington,  Alexander 
Hamilton,  and  Thomas  Jefferson  contended. 

In  later  days  came  John  Adams  as  American 
envoy,  who  put  his  two  sons,  one  of  them  John 
Quincy  Adams,  as  students  in  Leyden  Univer- 
sity. Here  Benjamin  Franklin,  our  first  electri- 
cian, learned  about  the  Leyden  jar.  During 
our  struggle  for  independence  Leyden  was  the 
center  of  pro-American  agitation  and  for  the 
creation  of  a  Dutch  public  opinion  through 
Jean  Luzac  and  his  fellow  friends  of  America 
in  our  favor.  The  results  were  the  prevention  of 
the  use  of  the  Scotch  Brigade  against  us,  the 
reception  of  John  Adams  as  an  acceptable  en- 
voy, recognition  of  the  United  States  as  a  sov- 
ereign power,  and  a  liberal  Dutch  loan  to  our 
Continental  Congress  of  money  for  the  pay- 
ment, before  disbanding  at  Newburgh,  New 

[  171  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

York,  of  Washington's  army.  When  paid  back 
in  1808,  principal  and  interest  having  amounted 
to  ^14,000,000,  this  sum  was  invested  in  the 
purchase  of  four  milhon  acres  of  land  and  its 
development  in  the  Middle  States.  Of  these 
transactions  the  stone  edifice  of  the  Holland 
Land  Company  at  Batavia,  New  York,  and  a 
rosary  of  Dutch  names  in  central  and  western 
New  York  are  memorials.  Even  Buffalo,  like 
Manhattan,  was  laid  out  as  New  Amsterdam. 
The  Hague  tablet  of  19 13  shows  that  Americans 
have  not  forgotten  these  facts. 

In  still  later  time  the  first  memorials  in 
Europe  erected  in  honor  of  the  Pilgrims  were 
dedicated  in  this  city.  The  site  of  John  Rob- 
inson's house,  and  the  wall  of  great  Saint 
Peter's  Church,  opposite  the  ancient  settle- 
ment and  enclosure  of  the  Pilgrims  during  forty 
years,  were  selected  for  the  tablets,  one  of 
bronze  and  one  of  stone.  The  Luzac  tablet  is  at 
112  Rapenburg. 

Thus  out  of  Leyden  came  three  great  strains 
of  blood  and  life,  British,  Walloon,  and  Dutch, 
that  have  entered  into  the  American  compos- 
ite; while  in  colonial.  Revolutionary,  and  con- 
stitution-making days  the  political  theory  of 
the  United  States  has  been  repeatedly  rein- 
forced by  reference  to  the  shining  precedents 

[  172  ] 


LEYDEN  AND  AMERICAN  HISTORY 

drawn  from  the  history  of  the  Dutch  Republic. 
To-day  the  American  visitor  will  read  in  his 
home  language  the  inscription  reared  by  grate- 
ful Americans  to  the  Pilgrims,  to  Robinson,  and 
to  Luzac.  The  most  imposing  of  all,  on  the  walls 
of  Saint  Peter's  Church,  is  the  bronze  memorial 
of  John  Robinson,  though  without  a  hint  or 
word  of  Dutch  hospitality,  or  the  guarantee 
from  the  Republic  of  "freedom  to  worship 
God." 


CHAPTER  XV 
JOHN  ROBINSON:  PROPHET  AND  LEADER 

No  one  knows  how  John  Robinson,  the  Pilgrim 
pastor,  looked,  or  about  his  height  of  figure,  for 
we  have  no  authentic  portrait,  picture,  or  de- 
scription of  him.  In  fact,  only  one  of  the  Pil- 
grim company,  Edward  Winslow,  is  known  to 
have  been  painted  or  pictured.  Eager  editors 
have  more  than  once  published  what  somebody 
imagined  to  represent  in  ink,  with  light  and 
shade,  Robinson's  features  and  expression,  but 
no  genuine  counterfeit  of  the  good  man  has  yet 
been  found.  We  are  sorry  for  this,  for  we  all  de- 
sire to  know  how  any  one  looked,  in  whom  we 
are  much  interested,  just  as  we  like  to  see  the 
face  of  the  person  who  is  speaking  to  us. 

Yet  what  we  aver  of  Robinson  we  must  say 
also  of  the  other  Pilgrim  leaders  of  the  May- 
flower. Were  we  like  some  genealogy-mongers 
and  coveters  of  crests  and  coats  of  arms,  we 
should  go  to  Europe  and  have  a  complete  gal- 
lery of  our  ancestors  painted  to  order.  Some 
royal  dynasties  and  not  a  few  newly  rich  folks 
have  been  illustrated  in  this  way.  We  knew  of 
one  wealthy  lady  who  averred  that  she  was 

[  174  ] 


JOHN  ROBINSON 

going  to  Europe  "to  have  the  portrait  of  her 
daughter  painted  by  the  old  masters." 

We  should  not  grieve  too  much  over  the  facts 
in  the  case  when  we  think  of  some  of  the  hid- 
eous woodcuts  and  repulsive  black-letter  prints 
that  have  come  down  to  us.  These  often  made  a 
child  look  like  an  imp  of  darkness,  or  a  dear  old 
saint  like  a  sooty  devil.  They  have  in  them 
more  black  than  white.  Do  we  not  remember 
what  Hawthorne  said  of  these  fearful-looking 
worthies,  and  the  effect  that  their  effigies  have 
upon  us.^  When  we  think  that  Robinson,  Brew- 
ster, Bradford,  Carver,  Standish,  and  the  men 
who,  we  know  by  their  lives,  words,  and  works, 
were  good  fellows,  we  ought  to  be  rather  glad 
that  their  faces  escaped  a  bath  of  ink.  In  fact, 
some  of  us  prefer  to  keep  our  own  ideas  of  how 
they  may  have  appeared  at  different  times. 
Herein  is  the  difference  between  caricaturist 
and  artist,  truth  and  falsehood,  and  whether  we 
form  our  opinions  of  the  Puritans  and  Pilgrims 
from  vile  woodcuts  and  hostile  tradition  or 
from  exact  record  and  true  picture. 

This  we  certainly  know,  that  John  Robinson 
was  one  of  the  best  men  that  ever  lived;  for 
character  is  the  greatest  thing  in  man,  and  this 
noble  pastor  had  it  in  rich  measure,  with  great 
self-abnegation. 

[  175  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

From  first  to  last  this  man,  one  of  the  great- 
est of  the  makers  of  America,  was  pure,  honest, 
generous,  cathoHc  in  spirit,  helpful,  tender,  and 
self-effacing.  Above  all,  he  was  true  to  his  con- 
science when  it  cost  him  ease,  comfort,  and  even 
safety,  to  walk  in  the  footsteps  of  his  Master. 
We  have  an  idea  that  Pastor  Robinson  was, 
In  both  character  and  appearance,  the  kind  of  a 
man  that  all  children,  and  most  real  boys  and 
genuine  girls,  would  like  to  know  and  meet 
often.  We  should  enjoy  hearing  the  stoiy  of  his 
boyhood ;  but  when  he  lived  there  was  not  much 
written  to,  or  for,  or  about  young  people.  Even 
Dr.  Watts  had  not  yet  been  born. 

If  it  had  not  been  for  that  most  wonderful 
and  interesting  of  all  books  in  the  whole  world, 
the  Bible,  the  young  folks  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury would  have  had  little  to  read.  No  doubt 
they  found  it  hard  to  sit  so  long  in  church  and 
listen  to  the  sermons  which  kept  the  delighted 
attention  of  their  elders.  Yet  attendance  upon 
their  simple,  reformed  service,  with  a  minister 
beloved,  teaching  in  their  own  language,  could 
not  have  been  half  so  tiresome  as  to  hear  a 
priest  talk  Latin,  and  go  through  a  long  string 
of  repetitions  during  the  programme  of  mo- 
tions —  turnings  round,  going  backwards  and 
forwards,  kneeling  and  rising  very  often  — •  say- 

[  176  ] 


JOHN  ROBINSON 

ing  the  same  prayers  over  and  over  again,  and 
making  signs  like  a  magician.  Such  monotony 
and  the  "longsomeness,"  so  often  complained 
of,  made  up  the  old  form  of  church  service. 

Nor  can  we  of  to-day,  deluged  as  we  are  with 
newspapers,  magazines,  books,  and  stories,  re- 
alize how  hungry  the  people,  old  and  young, 
were  to  learn.  Moreover,  the  Bible  in  English 
was  then  a  new  book  and  Its  stories  all  fresh 
and  In  a  winsome  form.  They  were  willing  to 
listen  for  hours  at  a  time  to  a  vital  message  from 
an  earnest  man.  Indeed,  even  to-day,  no  form 
of  communication  excels  that  of  the  living  voice, 
whether  In  speech,  song,  or  drama. 

It  is  a  proof  of  the  matchless  worth  and  eter- 
nal Importance  of  the  theme,  as  well  as  of 
the  wisdom  of  the  divinely  appointed  means, 
that  many  a  man,  with  whose  voice,  presence, 
thought,  and  personality  the  auditors  are  fa- 
miliar, can  hold  his  audiences,  year  after  year, 
though  speaking  in  the  same  place,  and  to  the 
same  people,  and  on  the  same  general  subject. 

In  this  method  Robinson  believed,  and,  ac- 
cording to  his  faith,  it  was  done  unto  him.  Let 
it  not  be  forgotten  that  the  Reformation  was 
in  essence  a  fight  for  a  free  pulpit.  It  was  a  turn- 
ing away.  In  the  spirit  of  primitive  Christianity, 
and  after  the  example  and  manner  of  Jesus  the 

[  177  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

Christ,  from  the  sacrificial  to  the  teaching  form 
of  rehgion.  The  soul  of  Puritanism  is  discov- 
ered less  in  the  Old  Testament  than  in  the  Epis- 
tle to  the  Hebrews.  The  appeal  was  not  to  the 
Jewish  kingdom,  or  autocracy,  or  to  the  people, 
but  to  the  spirit  of  primitive  republicanism  in 
the  Israelitish  commonwealth  and  in  the  syna- 
gogue. In  place  of  the  mass  and  an  altar — • 
often  built  of  solid  stone — 'in  the  middle  front  of 
the  house  of  worship,  with  a  pulpit  hung  off  on 
one  side,  perhaps  to  a  column,  there  now  stood 
in  the  center,  as  in  the  primitive  meeting  of 
Christians,  a  pulpit.  It  is  undoubtedly  true  that 
the  general  order  of  procedure  in  the  public 
worship  of  the  Reformed  and  Free  Churches 
followed  those  suggested  in  the  book  printed 
at  Geneva  in  1556,  entitled  "The  Forms  of 
Prayer  and  Ministrations  of  the  Sacraments, 
&:c,"  used  in  the  English  Congregation  at  Ge- 
neva; which,  in  a  sense,  "standardized"  the 
Reformed  Churches.  Robinson  taught  from  the 
Holy  Scriptures  three  times  a  week.  The  Lord's 
Supper  was  celebrated  every  Sabbath,  and  bap- 
tism as  often  as  required.  As  it  ever  happens, 
true  progress  was  made  by  entering  most  pro- 
foundly into  the  spirit  of  the  past.  Men  said  of 
Robinson  "that  he  had  been  with  Jesus  and 
learned  of  Him." 

[178] 


JOHN  ROBINSON 

In  the  celebration  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  Rob- 
inson and  the  Pilgrims  held  to  the  original  idea 
and  custom,  as  initiated  by  the  Founder  of 
Christianity.  "All  ye  are  brethren,"  was  the 
Master's  word.  When  the  disciples  sat  at  the 
table  in  the  upper  room  in  Jerusalem,  they  were 
equals  at  a  memorial  meal.  Nor  is  there  any- 
thing in  the  New  Testament  to  suggest  a  hier- 
archy, or  the  idea  that  only  a  person  claiming 
to  be  superior  in  rank  could  administer  the 
bread  and  wine,  giving  or  withholding  as  he  or 
some  corporation  pleased.  In  applying  democ- 
racy to  this  sacred  memorial,  and  in  having  me- 
chanics and  plain  men  assisting  the  pastor  or 
teaching-member  of  the  church,  the  Pilgrims 
believed  they  were  more  perfectly  fulfilling  the 
Master's  will,  when  He  said  to  those  who  were 
all  equals,  "Do  this  in  remembrance  of  me."  It 
is  not  wonderful,  therefore,  that  those  who  fol- 
low the  Pilgrims,  as  they  followed  Christ,  still 
enjoy  receiving  the  elements  and  symbols  — 
bread  and  wine  — •  not  from  a  priest,  or  a  su- 
perior, or  at  the  hands  of  a  man  standing  be- 
tween them  and  an  altar,  but  directly  from 
their  fellows  and  peers,  the  laymen,  called  eld- 
ers and  deacons.  Equally  sinners  and  equally 
redeemed,  to  these  as  brethren,  they,  the  pas- 
tors, gave  honorfor  Christ's  sake;  rather  than 

[  179  1 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

to  men  who  might  imagine  themselves  of  higher 
name  or  rank  in  the  church. 

A  symbol  is  only  a  sign,  not  a  proof  of  reality. 
It  is  sheath,  husk,  pod,  but  not  food  or  suste- 
nance. Hence,  nothing  in  religion  but  the  sub- 
stance can  satisfy  the  hungry  soul  that  seeks 
what  is  behind  the  screen  or  shadow.  The  study 
of  the  Bible  in  Tudor  days  revealed  to  the  stu- 
dents of  it  what  that  reality  was,  which  neither 
Henry  VIII  nor  Queen  Elizabeth  could  give.  A 
milk  ticket  is  the  symbol  for  the  nourishment 
of  human  life  at  its  beginning  — •  of  the  reality 
which  the  cow  can  give.  Yet  a  baby,  on  waking 
and  crying  from  hunger,  could  not  be  satisfied 
with  a  bit  of  pasteboard,  though  the  ticket  be 
endorsed  even  by  a  pope.  A  bank  check  is  not 
the  money  itself.  To  be  worth  anything,  there 
must  be  coin  in  the  vault,  and  cash  or  collateral 
to  the  credit  of  him  who  signs  the  bit  of  paper. 
To  a  boy  the  ball  is  not  the  game.  Jesus  taught 
that  life  is  more  than  meat  and  the  body  than 
raiment.  In  religion,  people  who  cannot  read, 
who  are  unable  to  think  hard  and  long,  or  who 
have  no  time  to  inquire  or  power  to  decide,  may 
be  satisfied  with  symbols  only  —  candles,  in- 
cense, bowings  and  kneelings,  pictures  and  im- 
ages; and,  in  most  religions,  they  are  content 
with  these.  All  creeds,  and  even  the  Bible  itself, 
[  i8o] 


JOHN  ROBINSON 

are  but  symbols.  Happily  the  Pilgrims  were 
nobly  uncontent  with  these  and  pressed  on  to 
the  truth  that  made  free. 

Before  the  young  and  strong  of  his  people 
sailed  for  America,  Robinson  bade  them  all 
shake  off  any  sectarian  name  that  might  sug- 
gest exclusive  allegiance  to  any  human  leader 
or  slavish  mental  following  of  any  teacher  on 
earth  —  not  excepting  their  own  pastor.  Wins- 
low  thus  reported  his  words : 

"And  if  God  should  reveal  anything  to  us 
by  any  other  instrument  of  his,  to  be  as  ready 
to  receive  it  as  ever  we  were  to  receive  any 
truth  by  his  ministry,  for  he  [Robinson]  was 
very  confident  the  Lord  had  more  truth  and 
light  yet  to  break  forth  out  of  his  holy  Word. 
He  took  occasion  also  miserably  to  bewail  the 
state  and  condition  of  the  Reformed  Churches, 
which  were  come  to  a  period  in  religion  and 
would  go  no  further  than  the  instruments 
of  their  reformation.  .  .  .  The  Calvinists  stick 
where  we  left  them." 

These  were  the  words  of  a  true  prophet.  This 
whole  passage  is  well  worth  reading  and  pon- 
dering. All  the  Pilgrim  documents  and  their 
subsequent  utterances  show  that  they  believed 
that  their  teacher  referred  not  alone  to  church 
polity,  but  to  truth-seeking  and  waiting  on 
[i8i] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

God.  Most  movements  in  religion  come  to  a 
standstill  because  the  springs  fail.  Followers 
imitate  too  closely,  even  slavishly,  the  peculi- 
arities of  the  human  founder,  instead  of  drink- 
ing of  the  fountains  and  feeding  at  the  origi- 
nals which  once  gave  their  leader  new  life.  They 
follow  him  no  further  than  that  to  which  he 
attained,  instead  of  doing  as  Paul  urged  his 
brothers  in  the  faith  to  do  —  that  is,  to  follow 
him  only  so  far  as  he  followed  Christ.  In  that 
war  in  which  there  is  no  discharge,  it  is  not  to 
the  corporal,  but  to  the  colonel,  that  one  must 
look  for  his  orders. 

Another  striking  passage  of  Robinson's  is 
this  universal  truth,  to  which  history  in  every 
land  and  age  bears  witness : 

"Religion  is  the  best  thing;  and  the  corrup- 
tion of  it,  the  worst.  Neither  hath  greater  mis- 
chief and  villainy  ever  been  found  amongst 
men  —  Jews,  Gentiles  or  Christians  — ■  than 
that  which  hath  marched  under  the  flag  of  Re- 
ligion; either  [Religion]  intended  by  the  se- 
duced, or  pretended  by  the  hypocrites." 

As  the  earliest  Christians  were  not,  for  hun- 
dreds of  years,  allowed  to  have  public  edifices 
for  worship,  so  neither  in  the  sixteenth  century 
were  those  of  independent  mind.  They  had  to 
assemble  in  private  houses,  or  under  the  hedges, 
[  182] 


JOHN  ROBINSON 

or  in  secret  places.  When  they  did  have  church 
buildings  they  put  in  benches  and,  later,  pews. 
In  still  later  days  that  meant  worship  by  fami- 
lies and  not  merely  in  a  crowd. 

In  the  Pilgrim  congregation,  on  Sundays,  the 
men  sat  on  one  side,  the  women  on  the  other, 
and  the  children  by  themselves. 

Besides  the  four  elders  and  three  deacons 
there  was  a  dear  old  lady,  a  widow,  who  looked 
after  the  little  folks,  to  keep  them  in  order. 
Let  us  hear  what  Bradford,  long  afterwards, 
when  in  America,  in  the  sunset  of  life  and  from 
pleasant  memory,  wrote  about  this  pastor's  as- 
sistant: 

She  "did  them  service  many  years,  though 
she  was  sixty  years  when  she  was  chosen  [dea- 
coness]. She  honored  her  place  and  was  an  orna- 
ment to  the  congregation.  She  usually  sat  in 
a  convenient  place  in  the  congregation  with  a 
little  birchen  rod  in  her  hand,  and  kept  little 
children  in  great  awe  from  disturbing  the  con- 
gregation. She  did  frequently  visit  the  sick 
and  weak,  especially  women  and,  as  there  was 
need,  called  out  maids  and  young  women  to 
watch  and  do  them  other  helps,  as  their  neces- 
sity did  require;  and,  if  they  were  poor,  she 
would  gather  relief  for  them  of  those  that  were 
able  or  acquaint  the  deacons,  and  she  was 

[  183  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

obeyed  as  a  mother  in  Israel  and  an  officer  of 
Christ." 

There  you  have  it — a.  "Hve  wire"  in  the 
church,  a  smart  old  lady  who  was  a  "blue  tri- 
angle," a  whole  Y.W.C.A.  in  herself!  Only 
honorable  women  are  noted  in  the  Pilgrim 
documents,  such  as  "Widow  Reules,"  "Widow 
Unwin,"  "Widow  Ch."  We  are  indeed  thankful 
to  Bradford  for  giving  us  this  fine  pen  picture  of 
at  least  one  of  them. 

It  is  not  on  record  as  history,  for  the  Pilgrim 
mothers,  most  probably,  wrote  little  — ■  if  in- 
deed many  of  them  could  write  — ■  that  they  all 
felt  exactly  alike;  but  their  whole  story,  from 
Penry's  wife  to  the  last  survivor  of  the  May- 
flower company,  is  a  living  commentary  on  the 
words  of  a  woman  at  the  Victoria  Institute  in 
London  in  1919.  Her  theme  was  "The  Influ- 
ence of  Christianity  on  the  Position  of  Women." 
She  said: 

"Our  supreme  Inheritance  Is  the  children, 
the  world  of  the  Immediate  future.  The  whole 
of  Immaturity  lies  in  our  hands,  and  first  im- 
pressions are  strongest.  The  man  makes  the 
aeroplane  and  discovers  the  bacteria  of  disease, 
but  we  make  the  man  who  does  these  things: 
we  make  him,  body,  mind  and  soul.  The  man 
is  the  best  General,  Admiral,  Legislator,  Mag- 

[  184] 


JOHN  ROBINSON 

istrate,  Lawyer,  Explorer,  Inventor  and  almost 
all  else.  I  feel  no  hesitation  in  saying  he  is  far 
the  best;  but  the  woman  forms  the  principles  on 
which  all  these  rulers  respectively  work.  'Man 
rows^  but  Woman  steers^  Man  gives  the  hard 
work,  and  the  whole  round  world  is  his  heritage 
to  shape  and  govern,  but  woman  moulds  the 
men  who  rule  it,  and  is  ever  hoping  that  the 
next  generation  will  be  wiser,  nobler,  better 
than  the  present  one.  We  may  indeed  say  that 
man  has  what  is,  but  woman  has  what  will 
be.  The  whole  story  of  her  thoughts  and  hopes 
lies  always  just  beyond  the  blue  horizon,  out 
in  the  unknown,  and  if  the  woman  is  a  Chris- 
tian, that  means  that  she  looks  toward  the 
ideal  of  Christ  to  what  ought  to  he  rather  than 
to  what  isT 

Whichever  side  we  take  In  this  open  and 
debatable  question  of  the  position  of  women, 
this  paragraph  is  worthy  of  remembrance. 

In  our  day  the  memory  of  Robinson,  the 
teacher,  as  a  prophet,  leader,  noble,  self-effac- 
ing pastor,  and  one  of  the  nursing  fathers  of 
the  American  Commonwealth,  is  honored  in 
poetry,  letters,  by  historical  tablets  in  bronze 
and  stone,  and  in  the  John  Robinson  Memorial 
Church  at  Gainsborough.  The  meaning  of  his 
prophetic  words  —  "more  light"  Is  too  clear 

[I8S] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

and  too  luminously  Interpreted  by  the  cove- 
nants ever  to  be  confined  by  application  to 
church  polity  only.  They  form  the  watchword 
for  every  age.  The  unending  duty  of  every 
Christian  is  to  wait  upon  God. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
THE  DECISION  TO  EMIGRATE  AND  WHY 

We  come  now  to  the  Book  of  Numbers  —  the 
fourth  act  and  writing  in  the  Pentateuch  of  the 
Pilgrims'  Progress  to  America  and  toward  its 
ideals.  This  is  the  penultimate;  for  the  Deuter- 
onomy, or  Second  Law  —  that  is,  the  expan- 
sion, revision,  re-presentation,  and  epitome  of 
all  the  truth  and  life  that  had  gone  before — • 
was  to  be  written  and  acted  beyond  the  sea. 
The  new  Pilgrim  Republic  in  America  inter- 
preted and  fulfilled  the  past  with  all  its  hopes. 
In  A.D.  1920  three  centuries  In  perspective 
show  this  with  ever-increasing  clearness. 

Bradford  thus  sums  up  the  life  of  his  fellow 
Christians  In  Leyden  and  tells  us  how  they 
felt:  "There  they  continued  divers  years  In  a 
comfortable  condition,  enjoying  much  sweet 
society  and  spiritual  comfort  In  the  ways  of 
God,  living  peaceably  among  themselves,  and 
being  courteously  entertained,  and  living  re- 
spected by  the  Dutch." 

During  these  eleven  years  of  life  in  Leyden, 
more  Free  Church  people  from  England  and 
other  countries  joined  Robinson's  congrega- 

[  187 1 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

tion;  which  in  1620  numbered  about  three 
hundred.  From  tlie  records  membership  in  the 
church  has  been  proved  for  one  hundred  and 
forty-three  persons.  Others,  to  the  number  of 
sixty-nine,  we  may,  with  probabiHty,  nomi- 
nate to  the  same  honor;  besides  those  anony- 
mous, to  whom  no  Pilgrim  document  makes 
reference. 

The  best  commentaries  on  the  Pilgrim  Book 
of  Numbers  and  probably  most  useful  for  re- 
searches in  genealogy,  are  to  be  found  in  the 
books  by  Dr.  Azel  Ames,  in  "The  May-Flower 
and  her  Log,"  and  Dr.  Roland  Usher,  in  "The 
Pilgrims  and  Their  History,"  both  remarkably 
full  and  accurate.  Among  the  numbers  given 
there  were,  in  the  Ley  den  congregation,  eighty- 
seven  children.  Of  wives  there  were,  or  had 
been,  sixty-seven. 

By  1619  it  had  come  to  pass  that  these 
peaceable  English  people  who  kept  Church 
and  State  apart,  were,  whether  they  would  or 
no,  involved  in  a  national  quarrel,  wherein 
Dutch  politics  and  religion  in  their  most  par- 
tisan forms  were  so  entangled  that  they  could 
not  be  separated.  These  English  Separatists 
might  possibly  have  stood  aloof  from  the  po- 
litical contest,  but  it  was  part  of  their  life  to 
join  in  the  vindication  of  their  religious  ideas. 
[  188  ] 


THE  DECISION  TO  EMIGRATE 

The  Dutch  people  and  nation  had  struggled 
for  years,  not  only  against  Spanish  autocracy 
in  the  person  of  Philip  II,  but  also  against  oli- 
garchy at  home;  and,  in  addition,  against  what 
was  considered  by  many  dangerous  doctrines 
in  religion,  and  which  also  in  their  view  upheld 
these  Spanish  enemies  to  republicanism  and  to 
orthodoxy. 

It  came  to  pass  that  Robinson,  their  leader, 
became  an  intense  partisan  and  champion  of 
the  truth,  as  God  gave  him  to  see  the  truth. 

Still  further,  though  the  Pilgrims  in  this  con- 
test were  all  on  the  Union  and  Calvinistic  side, 
against  secession  and  false  doctrine,  they  felt 
that,  even  though  well  settled  in  Leyden,  they 
must  give  up  their  "comfortable  condition" 
and  leave  the  hospitable  land  which  had  given 
them  welcome  and  shelter,  cross  the  stormy 
ocean,  and  begin  life  in  the  lonely  wilderness 
among  savages. 

How  and  why.? 

It  is  a  long  story,  which  Motley  has  told  only 
in  part  and  in  a  very  partisan  way,  though 
brilliantly.  Nevertheless,  Americans,  who  have 
had  their  Calhoun,  with  a  iifty-year  discussion 
of  the  slavery  question  besides;  their  Jefferson 
Davis,  Robert  Lee,  the  Southern  Confederacy, 
and  the  Civil  War  of  1861-65,  with  —  on  the 
[  189] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

other  side  —  Webster,  Lincoln,  Grant,  and  the 
Union  army,  can  understand  the  Dutch  issue 
of  1 6 19,  as  the  Dutch,  in  1861,  understood  us 
when  some  other  Europeans  could  not.  So  also 
Americans,  especially  the  veterans  of  Meade 
and  Lee  in  '63,  on  both  sides,  who  at  Gettys- 
burg, in  1913,  crossed  the  old  battle-field  and 
shook  hands,  may  further  see  clearly  how,  in 
both  the  Dutch  and  American  Republics,  there 
came  forth,  in  each  case,  a  reunited  nation 
stronger  than  before. 

In  16 19,  in  the  progress  of  humanity  the 
Dutch  Republic  had  reached  the  point  of  tol- 
eration, but  not  of  full  liberty  of  conscience. 
Politics  and  religion.  Church  and  State,  were 
still  yoked  together.  Politically  the  question  at 
issue  was  between  State  Rights  and  the  su- 
premacy of  the  Central  Government;  that  is, 
the  will  of  one  or  two  states  against  that  of  the 
Nation.  Led  by  Maurice,  the  Unionists  and 
Calvinists  believed  also  in  American  coloniza- 
tion. Bameveldt  and  the  Arminians  did  not. 
On  the  one  side  were,  as  a  rule,  the  Calvinists 
and  the  plain  people.  "Religion,"  in  their  Con- 
stitution of  1579,  meant  the  form  which  the 
Dutch  had  adopted  at  the  Reformation  —  not 
Romanism,  Anabaptism,  Lutheranism,  or  Ar- 
minianism,  but  Calvinism.  The  Arminians,  as 

[  190  ] 


THE  DECISION  TO  EMIGRATE 

a  rule,  were  In  the  aristocratic  classes.  Down 
under  all,  nationalism  was  the  supreme  issue. 

The  decision  and  result,  happily,  was  the 
triumph,  most  dramatically  but  bloodlessly  at 
Leyden,  not  of  the  State  troops,  but  of  the 
Union  army.  In  the  National  and  Interna- 
tional (not  provincial)  Synod,  held  at  Dor- 
drecht, in  the  Old  Cradle  of  Liberty  of  1579, 
the  Calvlnlstic  theories  were  declared  to  be 
orthodoxy. 

Then  followed  a  few  political  executions 
which  unfortunately  stained  the  record  of  the 
victors.  Nevertheless,  the  triumph  of  the  Union 
cause  meant  "a  new  birth  of  freedom."  The 
"bloom  of  the  Republic"  in  art,  literature, 
exploration,  and  the  colonization  of  America 
followed.  Throughout,  by  pen  and  voice  Robin- 
son, as  we  have  shown,  was  an  eager  upholder 
of  the  doctrines  and  democratic  theories  of 
Calvin  and  of  the  Union  cause  as  against  the 
aristocracy,  and  what  he  considered  heresy. 

The  seas  and  continents  were  now  clear  for 
the  enterprises  of  colonization  and  the  creation 
of  the  Dutch  West  India  Company  which  was 
to  favor  the  settlement  of  New  Netherland. 
This  took  place  soon  after. 

The  debate  on  emigration  beyond  the  At- 
lantic now  began  in  the  Leyden  congregation 

[  191  ] . 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

with  earnestness,  for  action  must  soon  be 
taken.  To  use  a  Dutch  word,  then  in  common 
and  every-day  use,  they  must  hustle,  so  as  to 
be  in  America  in  good  season.  Soon  the  seas 
would  swarm  with  Dunkirk  pirates. 

Should  they  go  to  Guiana,  with  its  warm 
climate.''  Or  into  the  North  American  wilder- 
ness.'' Between  Spaniards,  with  their  Inquisi- 
tion and  the  red  savages,  there  was  little  to 
choose. 

From  first  to  last,  throughout  all  their  busi- 
ness negotiations  their  "friend  at  court,"  their 
champion  against  both  psuedo-Puritanism  and 
excessive  covetousness  in  the  London  Com- 
pany, was  Sir  Edwin  Sandys  (1561-1629), 
friend  of  the  great  prose-writer  Hooker  and  of 
the  founders  of  the  colony  of  Virginia.  Of  the 
Pilgrim  enterprise  he  wrote  to  Pastor  Robin- 
son, in  1 61 7,  of  the  planting  of  a  colony  in 
America,  "which  I  hope  verily  is  the  work  of 
God." 

The  business  of  chartering  ships  and  of  hir- 
ing sailors,  captains,  and  mates  (or  "pilots") 
in  London  went  on  during  the  early  summer. 
Their  negotiations  were  made  with  the  London 
Company.  This  was  a  very  loosely  organized 
mercantile  body,  consisting  of  about  seventy 
members,  of  whom  the  names  of  forty-two, 

[  192  ] 


THE  DECISION  TO  EMIGRATE 

which  are  given  by  Dr.  Azel  Ames,  are  known. 
They  were  to  "ingage"  the  "Good  ship  May- 
flower of  Yarmouth  of  9  score  tuns  burthen," 
to  make  the  "viage,"  as  a  colony  transport, 
"  from  the  city  of  London  ...  to  the  neighbor- 
hood of  the  mouth  of  Hudson's  river  in  the 
northern  parts  of  Virginia  .  .  .  caUing  at  the 
Port  Southampton,  outward  bound,  to  com- 
plete her  lading ...  to  convey  to  and  safely 
deliver  at  such  port  or  place  ...  as  those  in 
authority  of  her  passengers  shall  direct,"  etc. 

Of  course  these  London  commercial  ad- 
venturers, whose  chief  object  was  to  make 
money,  made  pretext  of  their  desire  "to  do 
good  and  to  plant  Religion."  All  the  subse- 
quent history,  however,  showed  that  they  were 
far  more  solicitous  about  pounds,  shillings,  and 
pence  than  eager  for  Gospel  propaganda.  We 
pass  over  the  story  of  the  quarrels  and  mis- 
understandings within  and  without  the  Com- 
pany. It  is  certain  that  most  of  the  members 
were  not  in  sympathy  with  the  democratic 
Christianity  of  the  Pilgrims. 

As  the  day  of  departure  drew  near,  their 
pastor,  Robinson,  gathered  his  flock  together 
and  preached  a  sermon  which  was  long  remem- 
bered, taking  his  text  from  Ezra  8:21.  Two 
thousand  years  before  a  band  of  pilgrims  had 

[  193  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

gathered  to  make  plans  for  a  great  overland 
journey  and  Ezra  wrote: 

"Then  I  proclaimed  a  fast  there,  at  the  river 
Ahava,  that  we  might  humble  ourselves  before 
our  God,  to  seek  of  him  a  straight  way,  for  us, 
and  for  our  little  ones,  and  for  all  our  substance." 

Very  appropriate  was  the  text.  For  as  Ezra 
says  he  "was  ashamed  to  ask  of  the  King  a 
band  of  soldiers  and  horsemen  to  help  us 
against  the  enemy  in  the  way,"  because  he, 
Ezra,  had  already  declared  that  "the  hand  of 
our  God  is  upon  all  them  that  seek  him  for 
good,  but  his  power  and  his  wrath  is  against  all 
them  that  forsake  him";  so  Robinson  would 
not  ask,  as  in  the  case  once  before,  for  convoy 
in  the  shape  of  a  Dutch  man-of-war. 

In  like  manner  the  Pilgrims'  Ezra  was  send- 
ing forth  his  flock,  without  armed  soldiers  or 
array  of  warships,  either  Dutch  or  English, 
even  though  the  Spanish  Dunkirk  pirates,  in 
war-time,  lurked  in  the  dunes  of  Belgium  or 
scoured  the  waters  around  Holland  and  Eng- 
land, and-  though  savages  in  America  might 
destroy  them.  Yet  they  must  get  away  before 
the  Truce  was  over!  Only  the  little  ship  Speed- 
well awaited  them  at  Delfshaven,  but,  as  Ezra 
and  Bradford  alike  wrote,  God  "was  entreated 
of  them." 

[  194  ] 


THE  DECISION  TO  EMIGRATE 

However,  after  the  fast  and  sermon  they 
had  a  farewell  feast.  The  adventurers  bade 
good-bye  to  those  left  behind  and  soon  the 
boats  were  moving  down  the  canal  toward  the 
Maas  River  and  the  West. 

All  "lions  in  the  way"  having  been  duly 
scanned,  counted,  armed  and  provided  against, 
faced  and  routed,  preparations  were  made  for 
the  triple  journey  by  canal  to  Delfshaven  by 
a  small  vessel  to  England,  and  thence  in  the 
Yarmouth  ship  over  the  Atlantic.  Bradford 
tells  us:  "The  twelve  years  of  truce  were  now 
out  and  there  was  nothing  but  the  beating  of 
drums  and  preparing  for  war."  With  these 
Separatists  it  was  a  question  of  life  or  death  — 
between  the  possible  crushing  of  the  Republic, 
through  Spanish  victories  in  the  Netherlands, 
or  the  facing  of  the  ocean  and  wilderness.  Their 
faith  overcame  the  world. 

What  to  take  with  them  beyond  sea  was  a 
capital  and  very  personal  question  with  each 
of  these  modern  Argonauts.  Father  and  mother, 
boy  and  girl,  serving-man  and  servant-maid, 
master  and  apprentice,  had  each  his  or  her 
view  of  the  particular  world  he  lived  in  and  its 
special  needs.  Ideas  of  what  was  or  would  be 
wanted  on  ship  and  shore  varied  according  to 
personal  tastes  or  inclinations.  The  situation 

[195] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

was  like  that  of  soldiers  about  to  break  camp 
and  to  start  on  a  long  campaign.  Apart  from 
absolute  necessities  and  the  requirements  of 
the  regulations,  only  a  small  margin  of  per- 
sonal belongings  was  possible  or  permissible. 
Some  scanty  hints  are  afforded  us  in  Bradford's 
text  and  in  the  Plymouth  Museum.  There  were 
pewter  dishes  for  the  meals  and  a  few  crocks  of 
earthenware —  for  neither  faience  nor  porcelain 
of  China  was  yet  more  than  barely  known  as 
curiosities  in  northern  Europe.  Several  cradles 
and  the  comforts  necessary  for  the  babies, 
whether  in  arms  or  considered  as  posterity, 
must  be  provided.  Some  straight-backed  chairs 

—  the  American  rocker  not  being  yet  invented 

—  a  few  simple  remedies  for  illness  or  accident, 
and  such  like  necessities,  were  on  hand.  With- 
out doubt  dolls  and  toys  filled  the  thoughts 
of  the  young  folks.  Undisturbed  by  latter-day 
notions  or  the  super-heated  theories  of  sex  that 
fill  our  novels,  girl  babies  were  then  bom 
that,  without  much  oversight  or  prompting, 
took  early  to  the  emblems  and  implements  of 
mothercraft.  Boy  babies,  on  the  other  hand, 
as  they  developed,  clave  unto  trumpets,  drums, 
weapons,  and  things  of  virility.  We  may  be 
sure  the  elders  read  the  Book  of  Exodus  to  see 
how  the  children  of  Israel  prepared  to  leave 

[196] 


THE  DECISION  TO  EMIGRATE 

Egypt  and  what  they  took  with  them.  Yet  we 
may  be  sure  also  that  they  did  not  imitate  the 
chosen  people  in  spoiling  the  Egyptians. 

We  do  not  read  of  live  pets  on  the  Pilgrim 
ship,  whether  the  Speedwell,  the  Mayflower, 
the  Fortune,  or  the  Ann,  as  we  do  of  puss  on 
the  Half  Moon.  It  is  probable,  however,  that 
some  of  the  more  diminutive  of  the  youthful 
Pilgrims  took  along  with  them  some  compan- 
ions in  the  form  of  beast  or  bird. 

The  first  sound  of  an  animal  heard  by  the 
Pilgrims  in  the  New  World,  even  before  a 
human  being  was  visible,  was  that  of  the  wolf; 
but  the  first  beast  seen  was  a  dog.  Yet  this  in- 
digenous American  creature  was  not  from  one 
of  the  splendid  breeds  of  England  or  Holland; 
but  a  half-tamed,  wolfish  creature,  likely  at 
any  time  to  hear  and  heed  the  call  of  the  wild 
and  yield  to  the  forest's  lure.  In  fact,  when  the 
kind  of  dogs  to  which  we  are  accustomed,  and 
which  have  been  raised  to  their  high  estate 
through  the  care  of  man,  were  first  seen  by  the 
Indians,  they  were  more  afraid  of  these  crea- 
tures with  four  legs  than  of  those  with  but  two. 
Such  notices  as  we  have  make  it  plain  that 
when  the  savages  killed  one,  they  usually  shot 
its  carcass  full  of  arrows,  to  show  their  idea  of 
something  superior.  More  domestic  pets,  in 

[  197  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

the  form  of  stable  or  barnyard  animals,  in  fur 
or  feathers,  came  much  later  than  one  would 
judge  from  the  poems  of  Longfellow  or  the 
pictures  of  Bough  ton —  the  one  a  poet  in  verse 
and  tlie  other  in  color  —  the  latter  exceeding 
the  former  in  reproducing  the  true  atmosphere 
while  also  accurate  in  detail. 


CHAPTER  XVII 
THE  SPEEDWELL:  OLD  ENGLAND  AGAIN 

The  Pilgrim  congregation  was  now,  and  for  the 
next  four  months  from  July,  1620,  to  be  the 
Church  of  Sea  and  Land;  for  this  advance 
company  were  to  live  on  deck  and  in  cabin 
until  near  Christmas  Day.  For  the  most  part 
only  the  youngest  and  strongest  were  to  make 
their  home  afloat.  From  the  time  they  left 
Leyden  until  they  all  touched  the  American 
rock  was  about  one  hundred  and  thirty-three 
days. 

We  have  authentic  pictures  of  the  Dutch 
boats  in  which  people  traveled  inland,  by  water, 
in  those  days.  As  other  Separatists,  friends,  and 
relatives  from  Amsterdam  and  various  places, 
besides  their  own  minister  and  other  Leyden 
people,  came  down  to  Delfshaven  to  see  them 
off,  it  is  quite  possible  there  may  have  been 
a  flotilla  of  a  dozen  boats  with  a  company  of  a 
hundred  or  more.  Dr.  Azel  Ames  makes  out  a 
list  of  sixty-eight  passengers  on  the  Speedwell. 

The  boat  journey  of  twenty-four  miles  was 
through  the  canals  to  the  broad,  open  space 
of  water  in  front  of  the  Reformed  Church  at 

[  199  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

Delfshaven,  the  port  of  Delft.  This  village,  like 
several  others,  once  separate,  has  long  since 
become  part  of  that  great  city  of  Rotterdam 
which  has  been,  since  the  Pilgrims  set  the  prec- 
edent, the  greatest  of  all  gateways  for  emi- 
grants from  Continental  Europe  sailing  for 
America.  Yet  Delfshaven  had  already,  in  1620, 
a  name  and  history  of  possibly  a  thousand 
years.  On  the  town  arms,  In  the  center  of  the 
shield,  are  alternate  curved  bands,  six  white 
and  six  green,  standing  for  living  waters  and 
fertile  fields  of  grain  and  pasture.  These  are 
flanked,  on  the  left  side,  by  three  herring,  and 
on  the  right,  by  three  stalks  of  wheat  —  sym- 
bols of  food  and  wealth  from  sea  and  land.  For 
centuries  the  trade,  fisheries,  harvests,  and  ship- 
ping of  the  place  have  been  brisk. 

Here  in  1578  the  famous  admiral,  Piet  Heyn 
—  a  name  known  to  every  boy  in  Holland  — ■ 
was  born.  In  1624  he  was  to  capture  the  Span- 
ish silver  fleet  of  galleons  loaded  with  the  white 
metal  which  enriched  the  Republic,  and  here  his 
statue,  back  of  the  church,  stands  to-day.  At 
Delfshaven,  in  1573,  they  had  cut  the  big  dikes 
by  which  the  land  was  flooded,  the  Spaniards 
driven  out,  and  Leyden  relieved. 

During  the  Reformation  the  monasteries, 
churches,  and  cloisters  had  passed  over  to  the 
[  200  ] 


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k. 


THE  SPEEDWELL 

Protestants.  The  little  Reformed  Church  edi- 
fice, so  much  visited  nowadays  by  Americans 
and  British  folk,  was  of  old  the  chapel  of  Saint 
Anthony.  The  church  seal  Is  a  most  interesting 
one,  showing  the  town,  canals,  docks,  church, 
river,  and  even  the  East  India  Company's 
warehouse,  where  the  Pilgrims  most  probably 
spent  their  last  night  on  land.  The  motto  on  the 
seal  reads,  "The  harbor  of  salvation  is  alone 
with  the  God  of  Zion."  In  a  word,  this  seal  holds 
on  its  face  an  epitome  of  the  Pilgrims'  history 
and  faith.  With  them  was  the  Christian's  eter- 
nal and  verifiable  truth,  "Experience  worketh 
hope." 

Things  looked  very  differently,  then,  from  the 
scene  of  to-day,  when  one  passes  the  town  in 
the  splendid  steamers  of  the  Holland-Ameri- 
ica  Line  as  they  move  up  or  down  the  Maas 
River,  in  front  of  the  Pelgrim  Kade,  or  Pil- 
grims' Quay  — •  so  officially  named  at  the  au- 
thor's suggestion  in  1895  —  or  when  one  reaches 
the  church  by  motor  or  trolley  car  from  Rot- 
terdam. The  river  front  has  changed  and  fash- 
Ion  has  altered  many  buildings.  The  big  island, 
long  called  the  Ruige  Piatt,  that  had  formed 
gradually  since  1620,  has,  with  the  town  Itself, 
been  swallowed  in  the  great  city;  but  the  cows 
graze  beyond,  and  the  mighty  river  flows  on  as 
[  201  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

of  yore.  Our  soldier  boys  In  France  and  Bel- 
gium, in  1918,  knew  it  as  "the  Meuse." 

It  is  not  at  all  likely,  as  some  people  have 
fondly  imagined,  that  the  Leyden  party  "held 
their  last  prayer  meeting"  or  spent  the  night  in 
tlie  Reformed  Church  building;  but,  rather, 
with  songs  and  refreshments  in  the  warerooms 
of  the  East  India  Company.  The  next  morn- 
ing, July  22,  men,  women,  and  children  walked, 
and  babies  were  carried  down  to  the  wharf  or 
"key,"  where  a  little  ship,  floating  the  flag  of 
England,  the  Speedwell,  Captain  Reynolds, 
master,  awaited  them.  It  is  more  than  prob- 
able, not  only  that,  as  we  know,  some  Delfs- 
haven  folk  stood  on  the  quay  and  watched  with 
emotion  the  sailing  of  these  brave  people  to  the 
new  land  of  mystery.  New  Netherland,  but  that 
a  Dutch  artist,  quite  possibly  one  of  the  Cuyps 
—  painters  of  sunsets,  Dutch  golf,  and  genre  — 
was  there,  who,  from  sight  and  memory,  after- 
wards painted  a  picture  of  the  historic  em- 
barkation. Of  this  painting  on  wood,  the  artist 
George  H.  Boughton  wrote  to  the  author  that 
it  had  once  belonged  to  the  Duke  of  Marlbor- 
ough, who  had  bought  it  in  the  Netherlands. 

Assembling  his  flock  on  deck  all  fell  on  their 
knees  as  their  pastor,  Robinson,  in  tearful 
prayer,  commended  them  to  the  Almighty's 
[  202  ] 


THE  SPEEDWELL 

care  and  protection.  Some  joyful  noise,  to  wish 
them  safe  voyage,  in  the  hope  that  the  ship 
would  live  up  to  her  name,  was  made  by  the 
small  cannon  and  snap-cock  guns.  Then  the 
anchor  was  lifted,  the  ropes  were  thrown  off, 
and  the  Speedwell  moved  with  the  tide  down 
the  Maas  to  the  North  Sea. 

Past  the  green  fields  —  parallel  with  the  river 
and  symbolized  by  the  white  and  green  bands 
on  the  smokestacks  of  the  Holland-America  line 
of  steamers  and  on  the  arms  of  Rotterdam  — 
lying  far  below  the  top  of  the  dikes,  and  spotted 
here  and  there  with  grazing  cattle,  along  the 
front  of  the  river  towns,  over  the  fisheries,  and 
almost  in  the  shadows  of  high  church  towers 
that  served  as  flagstaffs  while  they  relieved  the 
flatness  of  the  country,  the  Speedwell  sailed  on. 
The  orange,  white,  and  blue  of  the  Union  flag 
flew  over  all,  and  these  colors  were  last  seen  as 
the  Hook  of  Holland  was  passed  and  they  sailed 
toward  the  sunset  and  Old  England.  Instead  of 
the  low  steel  cupola  forts  of  to-day,  they  saw 
only  the  sandy  shores  and  wooden  piles.  No 
danger  yet  in  the  last  year  of  the  Truce  of  the 
Dunkirk  pirates  rushing  out  to  capture  them, 
though  from  the  next  year,  162 1  to  1648,  there 
were  written  into  all  the  contracts  of  America- 
bound  employees  and  passengers  of  the  West 
[  203  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

India  Company,  certificates  of  insurance  and 
promise  of  ransom. 

In  four  days  they  reached  Southampton, 
where  the  larger  ship  Mayflower,  Captain 
Jones,  master,  with  the  London  Separatists  on 
board,  had  been  waiting  for  them  a  week. 

Yet  now,  though  danger  from  pirates  was 
perhaps  past  —  though  any  ship  at  sea  without 
proper  papers  of  authorization  is  liable  to  cap- 
ture as  illegal  —  they  were  still  in  dire  dread  of 
the  bishops  and  other  defenders  of  the  faith, 
even  a  royal  one,  and  their  spies  and  Informers. 
In  1609  King  James  had  even  detained  Henry 
Hudson  in  England,  though  he  had  released  the 
Half  Moon.  They  feared  lest  it  should  become 
known  at  London  who  they  were,  and  why  they 
—  political  and  religious  outcasts  as  they  were 
• — ■  should  be  going  to  America,  and  in  what  part. 
Moreover,  as  Bradford  notes,  some  remembered 
their  awful  experiences  at  Boston  and  Grimsby 
with  official  thieves  and  catchpoles. 

Their  fears  and  actual  troubles  were  aggra- 
vated when  their  principal  men,  and  the  agents 
of  the  Company  in  London  that  was  financing 
the  venture,  quarreled  about  the  agreements 
already  made  in  Holland  or  to  be  signed.  The 
upshot  was  that  Weston,  on  whom  they  had  de- 
pended, went  off  angry,  telling  them  to  "  stand 
[  204  ] 


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OLD  ENGLAND  AGAIN 

on  their  own  legs."  This  left  upon  the  poor 
Leyden  emigrants  the  burden  of  paying  the 
harbor  dues.  To  raise  this  sum,  amounting  to 
what  would  be  at  least  ^looo  in  the  values  of 
to-day,  they  had  to  sell  off  eighty  firkins  of  their 
good  butter.  They  got  away,  however,  before 
bishops,  catchpoles,  or  other  folk  could  hinder. 
They  "cut"  the  acquaintance  of  Captain  John 
Smith,  who  ventured  to  advise  them ;  but  they 
took  on  a  fine  young  fellow,  a  cooper,  named 
John  Alden,  who  proved  himself  to  be  one  of 
nature's  noblemen. 

When  all  was  ready  a  letter  was  received 
from  Pastor  Robinson  and  read  to  the  whole 
company.  Then  each  person  was  assigned  his 
place,  under  a  governor  and  assistants,  in  each 
ship,  and  the  arrrangements  completed  for 
meals  and  service.  On  the  5th  of  August  the  two 
vessels  weighed  anchor  and  got  away. 

It  is  not  certain  that  Captain  Reynolds  of 
the  Speedwell  was  a  scoundrel,  when  he  now, 
for  the  first  time,  and  not  before,  declared  that 
his  ship  was  leaking  badly.  Some  supposed  that 
the  leak  was  in  courage,  and  that  Reynolds  and 
his  crew  did  not  relish  the  idea  of  crossing  the 
ocean  and  staying  a  year  in  America  as  agreed 
upon. 

The  real  fear  of  captain  and  crew  was  most 
[  205  1 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

probably  wholly  inward.  They  dreaded  the  aw- 
ful possibility  of  empty  stomachs — ■  seeing  that 
the  bulk  of  the  provisions  was  on  board  of  the 
Mayflower. 

Whatever  be  the  facts  in  the  case,  the  two 
ships  put  in  at  Dartmouth,  now  a  noted  coal 
town.  Here  they  stayed  from  August  12  to  23, 
eleven  days.  Here  Henry  Hudson,  on  Novem- 
ber 9,  1609,  had  anchored  his  ship,  the  Half 
Moon,  after  his  return  from  America.  The  Pil- 
grims were  now  bound  to  the  country  which  he 
had  discovered,  and  to  which  England  made  a 
claim  that  had  little  justification  in  law,  fact, 
or  custom. 

Here  they  mended  the  alleged  defect,  but 
whether  the  cause  was  wholly  a  leak,  or  a  sneak, 
is  still  an  open  question. 

Again,  when  out  on  deep  water,  beyond 
Land's  End,  Reynolds  made  the  same  com- 
plaint. So  the  two  vessels  put  back.  Stopping 
nine  days  at  Plymouth,  from  August  28  to  Sep- 
tember 6,  the  passengers  went  on  land  and 
were  welcomed  by  their  fellow  Free  Churchmen 
and  treated  to  genuine  Christian  friendship  and 
sympathy.  Of  this  the  tradition  was  long  main- 
tained and  has  been  verified,  at  and  since  the 
great  meeting  of  the  International  Congrega- 
tional Council  of  1 89 1,  and  the  visit,  with  most 
[  206  ] 


OLD  ENGLAND  AGAIN 

generous  welcome  and  lavish  hospitality,  of  the 
American  delegates  to  Plymouth.  Now  a  tablet 
on  the  Barbican  or  place  of  anchorage,  stained- 
glass  windows  in  the  Town  Hall,  and  the  ar- 
rival, in  August,  19 19,  of  the  American  aviators 
in  aeroplane  from  America  and  the  Azores  — 
commanded  by  a  descendant  of  the  Pilgrims 
of  1620  — ■  keep  alive  and  in  honor  the  old 
story. 

This  putting  back  the  second  time  was  well- 
nigh  a  heart-breaking  disappointment  to  the 
genuinely  brave  ones  of  these  enterprising  pio- 
neers, besides  the  expense  it  Incurred  and  the 
delay,  which  meant  the  facing  of  winter  before 
getting  under  shelter.  Even  then  none  realized 
that  it  meant  also  failure  to  reach  their  desired 
bourne. 

Now  came  another  "sad  parting,"  as  Brad- 
ford says,  who  fitly  makes  comparison  with  a 
certain  ancient  "Gedion's  armie,"  from  which 
the  fearful  were  weeded  out,  leaving  only  heroes. 
Verily  it  was  a  sifting,  and  "they  that  trembled 
at  straws"  were  allowed  to  go  back.  It  was  de- 
cided to  send  the  Speedwell  to  London  as  being 
unseaworthy,  and  to  proceed  with  those  willing 
to  go  on. 

So,  although  the  division  was  like  an  ampu- 
tation, weakening  the  body  and  changing  minor 
[  207  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

plans,  It  was  probably  for  the  best.  Already  the 
hearts  of  some  had  failed  because  there  were  so 
many  "lions  in  the  way,"  and  such  fearful  souls 
were  not  fitted  for  the  rough  work  beyond  seas, 
which  required  brave  women  as  well  as  men. 
The  final  company  was,  in  the  main,  an  elect 
body.  Yet,  as  we  shall  later  see,  some  "unde- 
sirables" were  "shuffled  in." 

Was  there  not,  under  this  behavior  of  Rey- 
nolds, some  political  motive  or  a  desire  to  curry 
favor  with  the  king  that  made  the  skipper 
"sneak  back  to  a  safe  harbor"?  For  months 
James  Stuart  had  been  trying  to  get  his  son 
married  to  a  Spanish  Infanta.  With  almost  be- 
sotted subservience  to  the  King  of  Spain,  say 
the  English  historians,  the  royal  Scot  pursued 
this  object,  and  doubtless  Reynolds  knew  it. 
The  Mayflower  company  was  crossing  the 
ocean  to  settle  upon  what  the  Spanish  king 
claimed  as  his  territory,  and  he  looked  on  these 
heretics  as  common  burglars,  who  had  escaped 
out  of  Holland  only  to  aid  and  abet  the  Dutch 
and  do  him  an  injury.  We  are  inclined  to 
think  that  this,  more  than  any  "overmasting," 
"spoiled  trim,"  or  anything  nautical,  or  relat- 
ing to  wood  or  water,  was  the  cause  of  the 
Speedwell's  failure  to  sail  into  American  his- 
tory. The  return  of  this  ship  and  her  arrival  at 
[  208  ] 


OLD  ENGLAND  AGAIN 

London,  whether  because  of  refitting  or  through 
the  same  influence  that  had  prevented  Henry 
Hudson  from  returning  to  his  Dutch  employers, 
had  a  magical  effect.  Henceforth  the  Speedwell 
was  a  ship  of  good  fortune  to  her  owners. 

The  Mayflower  sailed  again  from  Plymouth 
on  the  6th  of  September,  and  here,  said  the 
elder  Pitt  in  the  next  century,  "  the  quarrel  be- 
tween Great  Britain  and  her  colonies  started." 

Yet  far  more  serious  than  the  overcrowding 
on  one  ship,  and  the  loss,  to  the  Pilgrim  com- 
pany, of  their  trading  and  fishing  vessel,  on 
which  they  had  expected  to  depend  for  food  and 
gain,  was  the  mixture  of  bad  elements  in  an 
elect  company.  The  Gideon's  band  of  Septem- 
ber 6  sadly  needed  resifting,  even  before  sight- 
ing Cape  Cod,  and  this  alien  contingent  later 
furnished  the  criminal  list  in  the  infant  republic. 
Here  already  was  the  prototype  of  the  unamal- 
gamated  mass  in  the  United  States  that  are  in, 
but  not  of,  the  American  Commonwealth.  In 
fact,  the  Mayflower  company  —  if  they  failed 
to  reach  New  Netherland  — •  was  to  be  literally 
dumped  on  a  sandy,  infertile  shore,  and  be  as 
roughly  treated  by  nature  and  the  sullen  crew 
as  if  landed  by  buccaneers,  instead  of  Christian 
men.  With  scarcely  any  butter,  no  oil,  not  a 
sole  of  leather  to  mend  a  shoe,  nor  every  man 
[  209  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

equipped  with  a  sword,  and  wanting  muskets 
and  armor,  as  Bradford  dolefully  mourns,  they 
had  little  to  depend  upon  beyond  their  un- 
daunted souls  and  "tlie  might  of  Him  who 
walked  the  wave." 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  MAYFLOWER 

We  can  easily  guess  where  the  fathers  and  moth- 
ers stood  when  the  Mayflower  was  out  on  the 
ocean  beyond  Land's  End;  and  also  at  which 
end  of  the  vessel  the  boys  and  girls  tried  to  get 
—  if  the  sailors  would  permit.  It  is  pretty  sure 
that  the  young  folks  wanted  to  see  and  know 
about  every  part  of  the  craft  on  which  they 
were  sailing,  if  they  could.  It  was  to  be  their 
floating  home  for  many  weeks. 

One  thought  possessed  the  souls  of  their  eld- 
ers. It  was  their  leaving  the  home  land  and  con- 
tinent for  what  was  unknown.  Theirs  was  a 
venture  into  times  and  places  untried  before. 
To  being  away  from  their  own  country  many  of 
the  fathers  and  mothers  had  become  accus- 
tomed during  eleven  years'  absence.  Most  of 
the  young  people  and  all  the  little  children  re- 
membered or  knew  nothing  of  any  country  ex- 
cept Holland.  If,  therefore,  they  went  ashore 
at  Southampton,  or  Dartmouth,  as  we  know 
they  did  at  Plymouth,  England  was,  except  in 
language,  a  strange  country.  Holland  was  the 
home  they  had  in  memory. 

[   211    ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

Yet  even  though  long  seasoned  by  previous 
years  of  exile,  and  hardened  through  recent 
delays  and  disappointments  —  too  many  to  be 
counted  —  the  parents  loved  the  dear  England 
that  had  cast  them  out.  They  stood  long  at  the 
stern,  looking  to  their  old  home  land,  where 
were  childhood's  memories  and  the  graves  of 
their  fathers. 

The  young  people,  we  are  sure,  looked  ahead. 
When  the  shipmen  permitted  they  ventured 
often  near  the  prow.  Ships  were  built  in  those 
days  as  if  they  were  floating  houses.  The  war 
vessels  were  made  to  appear  as  though  siege  and 
battle  belonged  to  things  afloat  as  well  as  to 
what,  "from  turret  to  foundation  stone,"  was 
reared  of  masonry.  Hence  it  was  as  two  castles 
close  together.  At  the  stern  was  a  wooden  fort 
several  stories  high  and  the  front  part  of  the 
ship  was  called  the  "fore  castle."  This  was  the 
sailors'  home,  reserved  to  the  tars,  who  called 
it  the  "fo'cas'l."  No  doubt,  at  times,  in  fair 
weather  the  children  were  allowed  to  play 
there. 

Such  a  thing  as  a  jib  boom,  or  large  project- 
ing spar  set  out  of  and  beyond  the  bowsprit,  and 
on  which  long,  triangular,  or  lateen  canvas  sails, 
reaching  high  up  to  the  foremast,  were  spread 
to  help  in  sailing  the  ship,  was  at  that  day  un- 

[  212   ] 


THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  MAYFLOWER 

known.  There  was  a  projecting  spar  which  was 
set  low  in  the  deck,  on  which,  when  the  wind 
was  dead  astern,  small  square  sails  could  be 
spread. 

Day  after  day  the  Mayflower  ploughed  her 
way  over  "the  blue  plain  of  the  sea."  With 
these  land  folk  there  was  no  previous  expe- 
rience of  the  boundless  expanse  of  waters, 
"wherein  are  things  creeping  innumerable."  In 
their  era  the  life  of  the  ocean  was  "multitu- 
dinous" rather  than  discriminated.  As  with  the 
Bible  translators,  they  talked  of  "creepers" 
rather  than  swimmers,  even  in  the  waters.  Nor 
had  the  currents  and  phenomena  of  this  mighty 
mass  of  water  been  studied.  Indeed  the  Atlantic, 
named  from  the  supposed  lost  continent  of 
Atlantis,  had,  but  a  short  time  previous,  been 
transformed,  in  the  average  mind,  from  a  "sea 
of  darkness"  to  one  holding  the  lure  of  wealth 
in  distant  lands  and  containing  the  pathways 
thither.  As  yet  the  idea  of  harvests  of  food  to  be 
won  from  its  depths  was  rather  novel  to  English 
folk. 

Familiar  as  they  were  with  the  Bible  narra- 
tives, we  have  little  doubt  that  they  had  read 
and  re-read  the  stories  of  voyages,  of  travel,  and 
of  adventure  told  in  that  fascinating  library  of 
inspiration  collected  during  two  thousand  or 
[  213  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

more  years.  Here  was  the  story  of  Noah;  of 
Jonah  —  with  his  return  ticket  —  his  voyage 
ending  in  premature  landfall  and  disembarka- 
tion; and  the  wonderfully  vivid  account  of 
Paul's  transit,  by  sea,  to  Rome.  This  descrip- 
tion in  Acts  is  said  by  scholars  to  be  the  most 
detailed  and  informing,  as  to  ancient  sailors' 
ways  and  nautical  terms,  in  all  ancient  litera- 
ture. Very  probably  the  most  comforting  of  all 
the  Bible  narratives  was  the  account  of  the 
crossing  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee  and  the  rescue  of 
the  sinking  Peter. 

Yet  day  after  day,  as  the  wastes  of  water 
gave  no  sign  of  a  land  horizon,  they  doubtless 
longed  to  free  a  raven,  as  did  Noah,  to  get  a 
token  — ■  that  was  then  certainly  "wireless"  — 
and,  after  the  fashion  of  their  own  Norse  an- 
cestors, to  try  the  experiment  of  this  bird  of 
discovery  that  should  go  forth  and  bring  happi- 
ness by  non-return  —  proving  that  land  was 
near.  Still  more  did  they  wish  to  send  forth  the 
dove  that  should  bring  a  leaf  in  Its  mouth,  in 
proof  that  normal  life  was  soon  to  begin  again 
for  them. 

Between  what  was  actually  on  board  the 
Mayflower  and  those  things  which  some  de- 
scendants of  her  passengers  believe,  or  could 
wish,  was  part  of  her  cargo,  there  yawns  a  gulf 
[  214  ] 


THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  MAYFLOWER 

as  deep  as  between  reality  and  stained  glass; 
or  actual  biography  and  tombstone  eulogies;  or 
the  Jesus  of  Syria  and  the  phantasms  of  dogma 
—  when  linked  to  revenue.  In  bulk,  the  con- 
trast reminds  one  of  the  mouse  and  the  moun- 
tain. Abraham  Lincoln,  one  of  the  noblest 
pilgrims  that  ever  trod  the  world's  highway, 
declared  that  the  story  of  his  people  could  be 
told  in  a  line  —  "  the  short  and  simple  annals 
of  the  poor."  In  truth,  the  same  verse  suggests 
more  precisely  a  true  inventory  of  the  ancestry 
and  material  assets  of  the  Mayflower  com- 
pany, than  all  the  boasts  of  Mammon  worship- 
ers, or  of  purse-proud  or  Pharisaical  descend- 
ants ;  or  the  flowery  rhetoric  of  the  after-dinner 
speeches  of  orators,  some  of  whom  flauntingly 
display  the  most  woeful  ignorance  of  history. 

Here  was  a  church  of  true  believers,  a  body 
politic  of  loyal  Englishmen,  with  both  loyalty 
and  patriotism  tested  in  the  fires  of  severe  perse- 
cution and  long  exile.  Here  were  home-makers, 
determined  to  cultivate  the  soil;  true  colonists, 
not  expecting  to  return,  rich  in  grit  and  grace, 
but  with  no  other  riches  and  in  a  state  of  clean 
poverty  that  shames  all  false  pride  and  ill- 
gotten  wealth. 

The  daily  heaving  of  the  log  was  always  a 
matter  of  interest,  for  it  told  the  rate  of  the 

[215] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

ship's  movement  through  the  water.  It  would 
have  been  strange  if  none  of  the  passengers 
kept  account  of  time  and  space  traversed,  for 
all  were  eager  to  see  land.  The  "pilot"  —  that 
is,  the  navigator  —  after  being  able  to  tell 
roughly  how  many  miles  the  vessel  had  sailed 
in  a  day,  could  calculate  the  number  of  leagues 
they  were  from  America. 

The  "log"  was  a  triangular  block  of  wood, 
called  by  sailors  the  "log  chip."  This,  with  a 
long  cord  called  the  "log  line,"  was  thrown  out 
behind  the  vessel.  The  record  of  the  ship's  voy- 
age, as  written  down  daily  by  the  captain,  was 
called  the  "log-book." 

It  was  because  Bradford's  manuscript  "His- 
tory of  Plymouth  Plantation"  contained  some 
account  of  the  voyage  of  the  first  of  the  coloniz- 
ing ships  of  the  Pilgrims,  that  it  was  absurdly 
called,  by  many  persons  in  England,  "The  Log 
of  the  Mayflower."  In  fact,  this  is  the  title  by 
which  it  is  specified  in  the  decree  of  the  Con- 
sistorial  Court  in  London  from  which,  officially, 
it  came  to  Boston.  Nevertheless,  so  far  from 
Bradford's  narrative  being  a  daily  journal  of 
the  voyage,  the  fact  is  that  he  gives  no  dates, 
except  September  6,  the  day  of  starting.  Alto- 
gether, there  are  only  four  or  five  pages,  in  one 
of  his  chapters,  devoted  to  this  subject,  among 

[216] 


THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  MAYFLOWER 

the  five  hundred  or  more  given  to  his  annals. 
Nor  does  he  in  this  narrative  even  so  much  as 
mention  the  name  of  the  ship,  which  is  not 
given  in  any  Pilgrim  document  until  1622. 
The  splendid  record  of  the  Mayflower's  log  has 
been  worked  out  In  detail  by  an  American,  Dr. 
Azel  Ames. 

In  modern  days  the  "log,"  used  on  a  ship  for 
calculating  speed  and  distance,  consists  of  a 
metal  contrivance  in  the  form  of  a  cylinder 
having  a  revolving  wheel  within.  This  measures 
and  also  records  distances  and  with  far  greater 
accuracy  than  was  possible  in  the  old  days.  In 
our  time  the  location  of  the  ship  on  the  earth's 
surface  can  be  determined  to  within  a  few  feet. 
This  is  done  by  means  of  the  reflection  of  a 
star,  or  the  sun,  in  a  little  mirror,  set  in  a  quad- 
rant or  sextant,  and  thus  the  degree  of  latitude 
and  of  longitude  may  be  worked  out  to  the  geo- 
graphical minute  and  second.  In  1620  the  quar- 
ter staff  was  the  implement  used.  We  see  Its 
shape  depicted  above  the  sailor,  who  stands, 
with  the  Indian,  on  the  seal  of  the  City  of  New 
York. 

To  a  man  of  constantly  active  and  fruitful 
faith  in  the  Unseen,  as  Bradford  was,  this  guid- 
ing of  one's  course  over  the  trackless  waters 
through  trust  In  what  was  Invisible,  yet  accord- 
[  217  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

ing  to  a  plan  which  man's  mind  had  projected, 
was  a  cheering  object  lesson.  No  one  ever  saw, 
on  earth  or  sky,  the  lines  of  latitude  or  longi- 
tude. These  are  the  product  of  imagination  — ■ 
"science"  or  "faith"  —  according  as  one  may 
select  the  word  as  token  of  "the  substance  of 
things  hoped  for,  and  the  evidence  of  things 
not  seen."  In  due  course,  by  trust  in  God  and 
in  the  imaginary  lines  which  were  yet  actually 
efficient  for  working,  the  ship  was  brought  to 
the  coast  of  America,  but  not  to  her  desired 
haven.  Bradford  let  "the  light  that  never  was 
on  sea  or  land"  guide  him.  The  feeling  in  the 
breast  of  the  leader,  as  in  that  of  many  an  hum- 
ble follower,  was  that  of  a  later  follower  in  the 
same  Pilgrim  faith —  "God  guides  me  and  the 
bird."  By  faith  they  overcame. 

Besides  these  aids  to  navigation,  and  such 
others  as  might  help  the  ship  master  to  find  his 
bourne,  there  was  little  else.  The  knowledge  of 
currents,  shoals,  rocks,  and  of  meteorology  was 
of  the  most  vague  and  rudimentary  descrip- 
tion. There  were  then,  on  the  eastern  coast  of 
what  is  now  the  United  States,  no  lighthouses, 
light-ships,  fog-horns,  sirens,  bell  buoys,  wireless 
radio  stations,  or  any  of  the  apparatus  calcu- 
lated to  facilitate  communication,  to  answer 
prayer,  to  insure  safety,  to  give  light,  or  to  save 
[218] 


THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  MAYFLOWER 

life.  Most  serious  was  the  lack  of  charts  which 
to-day  map  out  for  the  mariner  the  rocks,  reefs, 
rips,  shoals,  and  dangerous  currents.  The  elab- 
orate system  of  pilots  and  pilot  ships  that  now 
meet  the  incoming  steamers  and  sailing  vessels 
was  not  then  in  existence. 

When  at  sea  landsmen  and  passengers  may 
be  nervous,  but  the  ship  men  then  realize  their 
comparative  safety  and  enjoy  it.  It  is  the  land 
they  fear  and  the  dangers  on  the  coast.  In  fact, 
in  the  navigation  of  either  the  ocean  or  the  air 
the  problem  is  the  same  —  whether  with  aero- 
planes or  with  ships.  The  landing  is  more  beset 
with  dangers  than  is  the  medium  through  which 
the  machine  moves,  either  with  keel  or  wheels, 
sails  or  wings. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  the  Mayflower,  which 
was  bound  for  the  mouth  of  the  Hudson  River, 
was  unable  to  get  there,  but  that,  after  much 
effort  and  failing,  she  stuck  in  the  sandy  part 
of  the  coast  and  in  an  infertile  region.  Let  us 
listen  to  Bradford  and  note  how  he  tells  the 
story  about  the  ship's  adventures,  probably  at 
what  is  known  on  the  charts  as  Pollock  Rip : 

"After  long  beating  at  sea  they  fell  with  that 
land  which  is  called  Cape  Cod;  the  which  being 
made  and  certainly  known  to  be  it  they  were 
not  a  little  joyful.  After  some  deliberation  had 

[  219  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

amongst  themselves  and  with  the  master  of  the 
ship,  they  tacked  about  and  resolved  to  stand 
for  the  southward  (the  wind  and  weather  being 
fair)  to  find  some  place  about  Hudson's  river 
for  their  habitation.  But  after  they  had  sailed 
the  course  about  half  the  day,  they  fell  among 
dangerous  shoals  and  roaring  breakers,  and 
they  were  so  far  entangled  therewith  as  they 
conceived  themselves  in  great  danger;  and  the 
wind  shrinking  upon  them  withal,  they  resolved 
to  bear  up  again  for  the  Cape  and  thought 
themselves  happy  to  get  out  of  those  dangers 
before  night  overtook  them,  as  by  God's  provi- 
dence they  did.  And  the  next  day  they  got  into 
the  Cape  harbor  where  they  rode  in  safety.'* 

The  truth  is  that  except  in  Holland,  where 
the  word  and  the  higher  practice  of  the  craft 
originated,  there  were  no  pilots  as  we  now  un- 
derstand this  word.  A  "pilot"  in  Elizabethan 
times  was  the  captain's  mate.  A  pilot  now  is  a 
man  of  skill  who  can  bring  the  ship's  prow  to 
the  spot  desired,  so  that  the  plumb  line  is  as 
straight  up  and  down  as  a  pijl,  or  pole;  that 
is,  taut  and  vertical  over  the  place  aimed  at, 
and  thus  making  a  pijl  lood,  whence  our  word 
"pilot."  Such  a  man  was  Frans  Naerebout, 
born  in  1729,  to  whom  a  superb  memorial 
statue  was  reared  at  Flushing,  in  Zeeland, 
[  220  ] 


THE  VOYAGE  OF  THE  MAYFLOWER 

August  31,  1919.  Had  there  been  such  a  pilot 
on  the  Mayflower,  the  ship  would  have  found 
her  destined  haven  at  the  mouth  of  the  Hud- 
son River,  where,  on  leaving  Holland,  they  had 
hoped  to  find  a  home. 

Of  such  "pilots"  —  that  is,  steersmen  or 
mates  —  as  were  known  and  available,  the 
Leyden  people  secured  Mr.  Clarke,  who  had 
navigated  a  cattle  ship  to  Virginia  the  year 
before,  and  Coppin,  second  mate  on  the  May- 
flower, who  also  had  been  once  before  in  Amer- 
ica. But  with  the  captain,  mates,  and  all  put 
together,  they  could  not  properly  navigate  the 
ship  to  the  place  where  the  Pilgrims  wanted  to 
go.  "  With  too  many  captains  the  boat  runs 
ashore,"  says  the  Japanese  proverb. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
THE  COMPACT  AND  THE  PASSENGER  LIST 

There  Is  always,  perhaps  inevitably,  a  great 
difference  in  view  and  opinion  between  those 
who  study  or  know  about  a  thing  or  event, 
according  to  their  method  of  approach  — 
whether  beginning  at  origins  or  results.  The 
subject  may  be  very  much  like  a  gun  or  a  whip, 
a  baby  or  a  microscope  —  people  differ  accord- 
ing to  which  end  they  hold,  or  at  which  end 
they  begin.  Those  who  in  historical  study  or 
in  theology  work  forward,  from  the  first  begin- 
nings, and  they  who  commence  at  the  present 
and  move  backward,  will  probably  come  into 
collision.  They  are  like  two  locomotives  moving 
in  opposite  directions  on  the  same  track. 

Much  foolish  oratory  and  ignorant  eulogy 
have  been  wasted  on  the  famous  Compact 
made  on  the  Mayflower  at  Cape  Cod,  as  though 
it  were  the  beginning  of  all  representative  gov- 
ernment, and  even  "the  first  written  constitu- 
tion in  history."  The  Mayflower  cabin  has 
been  styled  the  "birthplace  of  liberty,"  the 
"cradle  of  a  nation,"  etc.  Not  a  few  windy 
orators  have  looked  upon  this  Compact  as 
[  222  ] 


THE  COMPACT 

something  suddenly  born,  "the  germ  of  a  na- 
tion," an  amazing  novelty  "without  a  parallel 
in  history,"  etc. 

How  many  of  those  who  signed  the  Compact 
made  their  own  signatures?  How  many  were 
able  to  read  and  write?  How  many  gladly  en- 
joyed making  and  adhering  to  it?  How  many 
felt  all  that  it  meant,  or  intended  to  keep  its 
provisions  and  live  up  to  its  spirit?  To  how 
many  was  such  a  proceeding,  as  settling  a  form 
of  social  order  and  frame  of  government,  con- 
genial and  habitual  as  second  nature? 

We  cannot  answer  precisely  any  of  these 
questions,  but  the  previous  history  of  the  real 
Pilgrims  is  known.  To  them,  in  their  church 
and  social  life,  self-control  was  habitual.  The 
orderly  government  for  which  on  shipboard 
they  voted  had  been  a  custom  for  years.  None 
could  join  the  church  unless  he  took  the  cove- 
nant of  mutual  service  and  agreed  to  its  forms 
of  order;  yes,  and  to  progress  in  the  Christian 
life.  In  a  word.  Christian  democracy  was  their 
vital  air.  The  covenant  at  Cape  Cod  was  simply 
an  outgrowth  and  expansion.  It  was  an  ex- 
pression, suited  to  the  new  need  of  the  church 
covenant,  voluntarily  entered  upon,  and  which 
bound  the  conscience  of  each  member.  Its 
essence  was  self-control,  in  the  fear  of  God.  It 
[  223  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

meant  justice  and  protection  to  all  men.  It 
called  for  an  attitude  of  constant  expectation 
of  greater  blessing.  In  Leyden  they  had  lived 
in  a  little  republic,  and  they  would  have,  even 
in  the  wilderness,  none  the  less  now.  In  a  word, 
the  Compact  was  simply  the  Free  Church 
covenant  "writ  large." 

The  Mayflower  Compact  was  not  the  be- 
ginning of  representative  government  in  Amer- 
ica. This  had  already  been  made  and  estab- 
lished, on  July  30,  1 6 19,  in  Virginia,  and  was 
at  this  time  over  a  year  old.  At  Jamestown  the 
people  of  the  colony  on  the  Potomac  had  met 
and  framed  a  body  of  laws —  "a  written  con- 
stitution that  created  a  government."  Nor  was 
it  in  New  England,  but  in  Virginia,  that  on 
May  27,  1776,  the  first  bill  of  rights,  guar- 
anteeing perfect  freedom  of  conscience  to  all, 
was  passed.  The  sixteenth  article  of  the  con- 
vention declared  that  "all  men  are  entitled  to 
the  free  exercise  of  religion  according  to  the 
dictates  of  conscience." 

It  was  not  Leyden  church  members  that 
wholly  constituted  the  Mayflower  company, 
which  was  a  rather  miscellaneous  body  wherein 
were  serving-maids  and  men,  more  or  less 
ignorant,  and  other  persons  from  London  and 
its  neighborhood,  of  whose  moral  character, 
[  224  ] 


THE  COMPACT 

social  standing,  and  education  we  have  the 
record  that  the  original  Pilgrims  knew  little, 
while  we  of  to-day  know  less.  These  formed  the 
unstable  element  in  the  little  community.  Al- 
ready, on  the  ship,  they  had  shown  signs,  not 
only  of  moral  weakness,  but  of  a  determination 
to  do  as  they  pleased  when  ashore.  Not  being 
persons  of  high  faith  and  strong  moral  fiber, 
nor  disciplined  and  tempered  by  exile,  suffer- 
ing, and  experiences  that  tested  character,  they 
formed,  altogether,  a  very  uncertain  if  not  dan- 
gerous element  in  the  little  republic.  Not  hav- 
ing had  the  testing,  they  had  not  the  requi- 
site spirit  of  endurance  in  the  face  of  still 
greater  trials  to  be  undergone.  Hence  it  was 
quite  necessary  to  temper  the  mass,  and  the 
Compact  was  as  the  fire  and  crucible. 

The  chief  men  of  the  Pilgrim  enterprise  saw 
this  clearly  and  they  took  precautions  in  time. 
Bradford,  who  read  men  through  and  through, 
tells  much  about  the  threats  and  mutterings  of 
this  rougher  element  on  the  ship.  He  and  other 
leaders  could  talk  Dutch  together  and  thus 
mature  their  plans,  without  those  who  were 
likely  to  oppose  being  able  to  unite  in  their 
opposition  or  to  have  power  to  hinder. 

In  any  event,  the  Mayflower  Compact  was 
nothing  new  to  these  people,  nor  was  the  minor- 
[  225  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

hy  strong  enough  to  mar  their  plans  for  order. 
The  framers,  in  their  own  church  Hfe,  had 
Hved  in  the  spirit  and  practice  of  self-govern- 
ment. The  threads  of  long  practice  had  become 
a  cable  strong  enough  to  hold  a  state. 

So  the  Compact  was  made,  even  though  it 
contained  two  funny  legal  fictions,  namely, 
that  James  was  the  "King  of  France"  and  the 
"Defender"  of  their  faith.  It  was  signed,  by 
how  many  in  autograph  and  how  many  by 
marks,  we  do  not  know,  but  this  much  is  cer- 
tain that  afloat  the  captain  was  master  and 
the  ship  and  all  persons  were  under  his  rule. 
On  land,  the  Pilgrim  Republic  was  sovereign. 
The  would-be  impudent,  insolent,  disobedient, 
or  lawbreakers  soon  found  who  was  master  and 
what  was  the  law.  All  honor  to  the  men  who 
made  and  enforced  the  Compact! 

Dr.  Azel  Ames,  in  his  unique  work  on  "The 
May-Flower  and  her  Log,"  ^  has  gone  into  the 
detail  of  this  ship's  life,  lading,  and  personnel, 
as  has  no  other  author. 

Of  the  Mayflower  passengers,  there  were,  in 
all,  from  start  to  finish,  men,  women,  boys, 
girls,  babies,  and  servants,  male  and  female, 
to  the  number  of  one  hundred  and  four.  Of 

^  The  May-Flower  and  her  Log.  Houghton  Mifflin  Com- 
pany. Boston,  1901. 

[  226  ] 


THE  COMPACT 

these  the  wives,  husbands,  single  adults,  and 
widowers  are  specified  in  the  list,  with  their 
(conjectural)  occupations  and  ages.  Every  un- 
married young  person  was  under  the  care  of 
a  married  couple  or  family  and  thus  joined 
to  it. 

In  his  first  list,  Bradford  names  the  men 
whose  wives  and  children  had  been  left  be- 
hind in  Leyden  to  come  later  to  America.  In  the 
second  list,  when  writing  under  the  shadow 
of  "the  angel  of  the  backward  look,"  he  makes 
a  survey  of  the  dead,  of  those  who  came  in  later 
ships,  and  essays  a  census  of  the  survivors,  of 
those  who  had  married,  and  of  their  children 
and  grandchildren,  alive  in  1650. 

In  the  following  list  we  name  especially  the 
women  and  girls,  who  might  have  been  in  the 
party  on  shore,  to  take  part  in  America's  first 
laundry  day.  Bradford  catalogues  the  May- 
flower company,  arranged  in  twenty-eight 
groups.  We  leave  out  the  names  of  the  males. 

In  the  Carver  family,  the  Governor's,  were 
eight  persons:  Mrs.  John  (Katherine)  Carver, 
Desire  Minter,  and  a  maid  servant;  that  is, 
three  females  and  five  males. 

In  the  Brewster  group  were  six  persons:  Mrs. 
William  (Mary)  Brewster,  two  sons,  and  two 
boys  named  More. 

[  227  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

In  the  Winslow  group  of  five  were  Mrs.  Eliza 
(Edward)  Winslow  and  a  little  girl,  Ellen  More. 

Mrs.  Dorothy  (William)  Bradford. 

Of  the  AUertons,  six  in  number,  there  were 
Mrs.  Mary  (Isaack)  Allerton,  her  two  daugh- 
ters, Remember  and  Mary.  May  Allerton,  who 
grew  up  and  married  A/Ir.  Cushman,  was  living 
in  1698.  She  was  perhaps  the  last  survivor  of 
the  Mayflower  company. 

Mrs.  Rose  (Miles)  Standish. 

Mrs.  Christopher  Martin. 

In  the  MuUines,  or  Mullens  party,  five  In  all, 
were  Mrs.  William  Mullins  and  Priscilla,  her 
daughter,  afterwards  Mrs.  John  Alden. 

Of  the  White  party,  six  in  all,  was  Mrs. 
William  White,  with  her  baby  son.  Peregrine, 
which  means  "Pilgrim,"  born  on  the  ship  and 
but  a  few  days  old. 

In  the  Hopkins  group,  eight  in  all,  was  an- 
other son,  born  at  sea  and  called  "Oceanus." 
Besides  Mrs.  Steven  Hopkins  there  was  a 
daughter  Constanta  who  made  a  record  as  we 
shall  see. 

Mrs.  John  Billington. 

Mrs.  Ann  (Edward)  Tillie,  and  her  cousin,  a 
girl  named  Humility  Cooper. 

Mrs.  John  Tillie  and  Elizabeth,  her  daughter. 

Mrs.  Thomas  Tinker. 

[  228  ] 


THE  COMPACT 

Mrs.  Alice  (John)  RIgdale. 

Mrs.  James  Chilton  and  their  daughter  Mary. 
Mary  Chilton  was  long  traditionally  the  first 
person  in  the  Pilgrim  party  to  step  ashore  upon 
the  rock  of  immortal  fame. 

Mrs.  Edward  Fuller. 

Mrs.  Sarah  (Francis)  Eaton. 

There  were  several  nursing  mothers  In  the 
company,  and  at  least  two  babies  known  by 
name.  Perhaps  these  were  taken  ashore  for  air, 
and,  possibly,  the  mothers  worked,  while  the 
girls  took  charge  of  the  infants. 

To  the  first  list  given,  Bradford  adds  bio- 
graphical notes  in  regard  to  many  of  these 
pioneer  young  maids,  some  of  them  of  much 
interest. 

Of  Carver's  household,  Desire  MInter,  In 
poor  health,  returned  to  her  friends  in  England 
and  died  there.  The  maidservant  married  and 
died,  within  a  year  or  two,  at  Plymouth. 

Elizabeth  Tillie  married  John  Rowland.  In 
1650  they  had  ten  children  and  five  grand- 
children. 

Mrs.  William  White,  left  a  widow,  married 
Mr.  Edward  WInslow,  and  of  this  union  several 
children  were  born,  two  of  whom.  In  1650,  were 
grown  and  of  marriageable  age.  The  little  girl, 
Ellen  More,  died  soon  after  the  ship's  arrival. 
[  229  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

Dorothy  May  (Bradford)  drowned. 

Mrs.  Mary  (John)  AUerton  "died  in  the  first 
sickness,"  early  in  1621.  Her  daughter,  Remem- 
ber, when  Bradford  wrote  in  1650,  was  married 
and  with  her  four  children  lived  in  Salem. 

Mrs.  Rose  (Miles)  Standish  "died  in  the  first 
sickness." 

Mrs.  Christopher  Martin —  "he  and  all  his 
died  in  the  first  infection  not  long  after  the 
arrival." 

All  of  the  Mullines  (first  record)  or  Molenes 
(second  record)  "dyed  the  first  winter.  Only 
his  daughter  Priscilla  the  only  survivor  mar- 
ried with  John  Alden,  who  are  both  living  and 
their  oldest  daughter  is  married  and  hath  five 
children." 

The  pioneer  mother,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  (Steven) 
Hopkins,  after  twenty  years  of  life  in  Plymouth, 
died,  after  one  son  and  four  daughters  had 
been  born  to  her  there.  The  daughter  Con- 
stanta married  and  bore  twelve  children,  all 
living  in  1650. 

Mrs.  Ellen  (John)  Billington.  In  1650  there 
were  eight  Billington  children. 

Both   Mrs.   Ann   (Edward)  Tillie  and   her 
cousin,  Humility  Cooper,  "died  soon  after  their 
arrival,"  and  their  cousin  Humility  "was  sent 
for  into  England  and  died  there." 
[  230  ] 


THE  COMPACT 

Mrs.  "John  Tillie.  She  and  her  husband  both 
died  a  Httle  after  they  came  ashore."  The 
daughter,  EHzabeth,  as  we  have  seen,  married 
John  Rowland  and  reared  a  large  family. 

Mrs.  (Thomas)  Tinker.  He  "and  his  wife  and 
son  all  died  in  the  first  sickness." 

Mrs.  Alice  (John)  Rigdale.  "And  so  did 
Rigdale  and  his  wife"  die  early  in  1621. 

The  parents  of  Mary  Chilton,  who  in  legend 
first  stepped  ashore  on  Plymouth  Rock  and 
into  the  settlement,  "died  in  the  first  infec- 
tion," but  Mary  married  and  had,  in  1646,  nine 
children. 

Mrs.  Edward  Fuller,  with  her  husband, 
"died  soon  after  they  came  ashore." 

Mrs.  Sarah  (Francis)  Eaton,  a  nursing 
mother,  "whose  son  came  over  a  sucking  child, 
died  in  the  general  sickness." 

No  mention  Is  here  made  of  the  women  and 
girls  who  came  later  to  Plymouth  In  other  ships. 

Thirty  years  after  the  beginnings,  Bradford, 
In  revising  the  list,  added  items  of  interest  con- 
cerning the  boys  of  1620. 

The  little  boy  Jaspar  Carver  "  died  next  year 
of  the  common  infection." 

The  boy  William  Latham,  "after  twenty 
years  or  more  in  America  went  to  England  and 
from  thence  to  the  Bahama  Islands  in  the 

[  231  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

West  Indies  and  there  with  some  others  was 
starved  for  want  of  food." 

Of  Brewster's  sons,  "  Wrastling  died  a  young 
man,  unmarried;  his  son-in-law  Hved  till  this 
year  1650  and  died  and  left  four  children  now 
living."  Richard  More's  brother  died  the  first 
winter,  but  he,  Richard,  lived  to  marry  and 
have  four  or  five  children  alive  in  1 650. 

Barthe,  or  Bartholomew  AUerton  went  back 
to  England  and  married. 

How  old  John  Crakston  was,  in  1620,  we  do 
not  know,  but  his  father  "died  in  the  first 
mortality."  The  young  man,  about  1625  or 
1626,  "having  lost  himself  in  the  woods,  his 
feet  became  frozen  which  put  him  into  a  fever, 
of  which  he  died." 

Joseph  Mullens,  with  father,  mother,  and 
the  servant,  died  the  first  winter,  only  his  sister 
Priscilla  surviving. 

The  two  sons  of  Mr.  William  White,  one 
Resolved,  and  the  other,  the  ship-born  baby, 
Peregrine,  grew  up  and  married,  the  former 
having  five,  and  the  latter  two,  children. 

Giles  Hopkins,  in  1650,  was  married  and  had 
four  children. 

Of  the  two  Billingt'^r  boys,  John  died  before 
his  father,  but  Francis  became  a  man,  married, 
and  had  eight  children. 

[  232  ] 


THE  COMPACT 

Henry  Samson,  cousin  of  Mr.  Edward  Tillie, 
was  in  1650  a  husband  and  the  father  of  seven 
children.  We  can  see  how  his  Christian  name 
was  pronounced  when  Bradford  writes  his 
name  in  three  syllables,  "Henery."  Note  also 
how  "Wrestling"  was  pronounced. 

John  Cooke,  whose  father  Francis  lived  to  be 
a  very  old  man,  had  in  1650  four  children. 

Joseph  Rogers,  son  of  Thomas,  survived  his 
father,  who  "died  in  the  first  sickness."  In 
1650  Joseph  had  six  children. 

The  son  of  Thomas  Tinker,  with  his  father 
and  mother,  "died  in  the  first  sickness." 

Samuel  Fuller,  son  of  Edward,  had,  in  1650, 
four  children. 

The  two  sons  of  John  Turner  "died  in  the 
first  sickness." 

Samuel  Eaton,  a  little  baby  in  1620,  grew  up, 
married,  and  in  1650  had  a  wife  and  child. 

In  1679,  when  some  later  hand  added  to 
Bradford's  list,  the  only  boys  of  1620  then  sur- 
viving were  Resolved  White  and  John  Cooke, 
the  last  one  being  alive  in  1698. 

Bradford  in  1650  said:  "Of  these  100  persons 
which  came  over  first  in  the  first  ship,  together, 
the  greater  half  died  in  the  general  mortality; 
and  most  of  them  in  two  or  three  months  time. 
...  Of  those  few  remaining  are  sprung  up  above 
[  233  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

one  hundred  and  sixty  persons,  in  these  thirty 
years,  and  are  now  living  in  this  present  year, 
1650.  .  .  .  And  of  the  old  stock  .  .  .  there  are 
yet  living  .  .  .  near  thirty  persons." 

At  this  date  1650  there  were  no  widows. 

A  later  hand  has  added:  "Two  persons  living 
that  came  over  in  the  first  ship,  1620,  this  pres- 
ent year,  1650,  Resolved  White  and  Mary 
Cushman.  The  daughter  of  Mr.  Allerton  and 
Mary  Cushman  is  still  living  this  present  year 
1698." 

In  the  list  of  the  Mayflower's  passengers  as 
set  forth  by  Ames,  there  were  of  adult  males,  44; 
of  adult  females,  19;  of  male  young  people,  29; 
of  maidens  and  little  girls,  10;  or  102  in  all.  Of 
the  men,  26,  and  of  the  women,  18,  were  mar- 
ried. There  were  25  single  male  adults  and  one 
unmarried  woman  —  Mrs.  Carver's  servant. 
Perhaps  she  deserves  a  memorial,  as  the  first  of 
that  noble  army  of  "old  maids"  in  New  Eng- 
land without  whom  one  can  hardly  imagine  how 
the  life  of  churches  and  charities  could  be  main- 
tained. 

In  the  list  of  men  whose  occupations  are 
known,  there  were  2  carpenters,  2  tradesmen,  10 
servants,  4  mariners,  2  printers.  Other  trades  or 
professions  represented,  each  by  one  person, 
were  those  of  the  cooper,  silk  dyer,  wool  carder, 
.  [  234  ] 


THE  COMPACT 

hatter,  merchant,  physician,  smith,  soldier,  and 
tailor.  Traditionally  there  was  also  a  shoe- 
maker. At  different  times  the  men  had  changed 
their  occupations  and  worked  at  other  trades 
and  crafts,  and  it  is  probable  that  it  was  at  Ply- 
mouth that  the  "all-around  Yankee"  —  so  con- 
spicuous in  American  tradition  and  so  promi- 
nent in  reality  throughout  the  whole  of  our 
national  history —  here  began  his  multitudinous 
and  varied  career.  Many  a  Pilgrim  man  was  a 
whole  department  store  in  himself,  and  well 
fitted  to  do  many  and  varied  things.  Their  two 
long  experiences  in  earning  a  livelihood  —  one 
of  these  being  under  the  spur  of  poverty,  in  a 
foreign  land,  and  amid  new  and  strange  experi- 
ences — ■  had  trained  these  sturdy  pioneers  to 
tackle  new  jobs  and  face  unexpected  obstacles. 
There  is  no  education,  not  even  in  a  univer- 
sity, equal  to  that  of  earning  one's  own  living. 
So,  all  things  considered,  probably  there  never 
came  to  America  a  company  of  people  better 
fitted  within  and  without,  with  grit  and  grace, 
for  endurance  that  meant  final  triumph. 

To-day  at  Provincetown  a  superb  tower, 
after  the  model  of  the  fam.ous  one  at  Siena, 
in  Italy,  and  dedicated  August  20,  1907,  com- 
memorating the  Compact,  serves  as  perpetual 
memorial  of  the  past  and  as  a  beacon  to  those 

[  23s  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

at  sea.  The  corner-stone  was  laid  by  President 
Roosevelt  and  the  capstone  celebrated  by  Pres- 
ident Taft,  The  chief  living  educator  of  the 
nation,  Charles  W.  Eliot,  made  the  address, 
portraying  the  Pilgrims  and  pioneers  in  indus- 
trial cooperation.  Miss  Barbara  Hoyt,  tenth  in 
generation  from  Elder  William  Brewster,  un- 
veiled the  bronze  tablet.  The  hymn,  composed 
by  the  author  of  this  book,  was  sung,  and  Dr. 
E.  J.  Carpenter,  historian  of  the  occasion,  after- 
wards wrote  the  book  "The  Pilgrims  and  Their 
Monument."  Honored  representatives  from 
England  and  Holland  made  addresses.  Memo- 
rial stones,  or  bricks,  from  Austerfield,  Leyden, 
Delfshaven,  and  Siena  are  built  into  the  grace- 
ful monument,  that  stands  like  a  white  finger 
pointing  to  that  Heaven,  from  which  the  City 
of  God  —  to  the  men  who  look  and  wait  for 
her  coming  —  is  ever  descending,  in  glory  and 
beauty,  "  like  a  bride  adorned  for  her  husband." 


CHAPTER  XX 
THE  GLORIOUS  WASH 

Weary  of  the  sea  and  its  monotony,  and  of 
ship  life,  with  its  trying  discomforts,  the  cry  of 
"Land  ho!"  was  heard  joyfully.  Entrancing 
were  the  distant  views  of  the  evergreen  trees 
and  the  sight  of  forests  and  of  land  birds,  and  of 
the  shore,  even  if  low  and  sandy  as  in  Holland, 
instead  of  with  white  cliffs  as  in  southern  Eng- 
land. When  announcement  was  made  that,  on 
the  day  after  Sabbath  rest,  all  who  wished  could 
go  ashore  for  the  washing  of  clothes,  we  imagine 
there  was  a  beating  of  pulses,  clapping  of  hands, 
and  dancing  of  young  feet.  What  fun  for  the 
lads  to  gather  wood  and  make  a  fire,  to  camp 
out,  to  cook  things,  to  eat  in  the  open  air,  and 
thus  to  return  for  a  season  to  outdoor  life. 
Every  boy,  by  nature,  has  a  secret  ambition  to 
be,  dramatically  at  least,  a  pirate,  or  a  savage, 
or  a  scout,  or  a  hunter;  and  here  was  a  splen- 
did opportunity  to  return  to  the  primitive.  The 
girls,  no  less  than  the  boys,  yearned  for  new  sen- 
sations and  for  something  to  do,  while  all  were 
glad  enough  to  stretch  their  limbs  and  tread 
on  grass  and  sand,  even  though  there  were  no 

[  237  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

flowers  to  pick  at  this  season  of  the  year,  when 
drizzHng  rain  and  fog,  cold  wind  and  colder 
waters,  made  sneezes  and  coughs  more  general 
tlian  desirable. 

This  was  the  inauguration  of  our  national 
institution  of  a  Monday  wash.  Nevertheless, 
the  first  which  has  been  recorded  was  less  Eng- 
lish than  Dutch,  as  any  one  knows  who  is  fa- 
miliar with  housekeeping  in  Holland,  of  which 
most  of  the  boys  and  girls  were  natives.  In  the 
Low  Countries  is  the  original  home  of  linen 
for  underwear  as  well  as  for  lace  and  tapestry. 
Muslin,  or  cotton  cloth,  was  still  unknown  in 
western  Europe.  Linen  was  the  ordinary  ma- 
terial for  underwear,  whether  for  shirts,  stock- 
ings, or  petticoats;  all  other  garments  being 
woolen,  hempen,  or  linsey-woolsey.  The  same 
flaxen  fabric,  starched  and  bleached  as  white  as 
snow,  and  with  the  Puritans  usually  without 
frills,  fluting,  or  crimps,  furnished  the  material 
for  collars,  cuffs,  and  headkerchiefs.  Hats  and 
bonnets  for  women  were  not  seen  among  the 
Separatists.  In  Professor  Robert  W.  Weir's 
painting,  completed  in  1845  and  set  in  the  ro- 
tunda at  Washington,  one  of  the  women  on  the 
Speedwell  is  decked  in  a  gorgeous  gown,  and 
with  a  Gainsborough  hat  trimmed  with  a  long 
ostrich  feather.  But  this  picture  was  made  in 

[238] 


THE  GLORIOUS  WASH 

days  before  the  story  of  the  Pilgrims,  or  plain 
people,  was  disentangled  from  that  of  the  Puri- 
tans of  Salem  who  were  better  off  in  worldly 
goods. 

By  the  year  1620  linen  in  the  Low  Countries 
had  become  cheap  and  in  general  use  for  the 
body,  while  bed  sheets,  ticking,  mattresses,  and 
pillow-cases  were  common.  Large  quantities  of 
"Hollands"  or  Dutch  linen  were  exported  to 
England,  taking  the  place,  for  bedding,  even  in 
huts  and  cottages,  of  the  rushes  on  the  floor, 
with  the  log  of  wood  for  bolster  and  sack  of 
chaff  for  a  headrest.  In  the  Dutch  houses,  in 
which  most  of  the  Pilgrims  had  lived,  some  of 
them  for  a  dozen  years  or  more,  and  in  which 
they  had  reared  their  children,  no  housekeeper 
that  had  an  ordinary  supply  of  linen  ever 
thought  of  having  washday  once  a  week.  That 
was  a  mark  of  poverty.  Unless  people  were  very 
poor  and  had  no  store  of  linen,  the  usual  custom 
was  to  keep  in  a  room  by  itself,  generally  in  the 
attic  at  the  top  of  the  house,  the  frequently 
changed  underclothes;  that  is,  the  white  goods, 
to  be  washed  only  once  a  month  or  less  often. 
This  argued  that  the  family  had  a  linen  closet 
with  ample  fresh  supplies,  and  were  not  obliged 
to  go  into  the  laundry  industry  every  seventh 
day.  A  bride's  dowry  was  often  the  rich  store  of 
[  239  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

linen  which  she  brought  to  her  husband's  house 
to  make  a  home,  and  this  custom,  not  unusual 
with  us,  originated  in  the  RepubHc.  In  fact,  the 
ordinary  English  word  "Hollands"  applied  to 
the  best  linen  fabrics  continued  In  use  until 
quite  recently. 

Snowy  whiteness  was  the  mark  of  the  Puri- 
tan maiden's  costume,  harmonizing  subtly  and 
charmingly  with  her  general  carriage  as  a  true 
and  appropriate  symbol  of  her  character.  With 
the  Puritan,  whether  Huguenot,  Dutch,  Eng- 
lish, or  Scottish,  cleanliness  was  next  to  godli- 
ness. To  this  day  a  washerwoman  in  France  is 
called  a  "blanchisseuse,"  or  whitener.  In  Hol- 
land "bleeker"  is  only  the  original  and  older 
spelling  and  pronunciation  of  the  "bleacher," 
who  blanched  fabrics.  The  famous  Bleecker 
Street,  on  Manhattan,  is  the  witness  of  both  a 
trade  and  a  family. 

In  the  case  of  the  Mayflower  party,  It  had 
been  one  hundred  and  thirty-three  days  since 
they  had  left  their  Leyden  home,  with  only  an 
occasional  opportunity  to  live  up  to  their  stand- 
ards of  personal  cleanliness,  during  what  meant 
really  a  half-dozen  transshipments,  or  voyages, 
longer  or  shorter.  Hence  their  needs  and  desires. 
At  Cape  Cod,  next  to  their  yearning  for  god- 
liness, expressed  in  law  and  mutual  compact, 
[  240  ] 


THE  GLORIOUS  WASH 

came  their  desire  for  what  was  the  next  virtue, 
love  of  cleanliness. 

Surely  there  never  was  a  happier  washing 
party.  What  provision,  or  in  what  quality  or 
quantity,  of  soap,  lye,  or  cleaning  substance 
they  had  on  the  ship,  is  not  known;  but  once 
on  land,  fuel  and  soft  water  were  as  plentiful  as 
was  the  willingness  of  hands  and  hearts  to  make 
use  of  them.  In  our  minds  we  can  draw  a  picture 
of  the  strong  men  swinging  their  axes  and  hew- 
ing down  the  red  cedar  trees.  Doubtless  they 
cut  the  saplings  and  stripped  them  of  their 
branches  for  poles  to  support  the  clothes-lines, 
while  the  boys  gathered  the  brushwood  for 
quick  kindling.  Then  on  two  forked  supports 
the  cross-piece  would  be  laid,  the  kettles  filled 
and  hung,  and  the  fire  started  to  furnish  hot 
water  for  boiling  the  clothes.  No  lucifer  matches 
were  then  known,  but  flint,  steel,  and  tinder, 
aided  perhaps  with  a  little  gunpowder,  met  in 
sparks;  and,  presto,  a  lively  blaze!  A  stream 
of  pure  water,  soft  for  suds  and  easy  rubbing, 
flowed  from  a  spring  near  by,  and  sweet  was  the 
smell  of  the  burning  juniper  or  red  spruce. 

We  can  imagine  several  hours  spent  over  the 
tubs.  It  must  have  been  right  good  exercise  for 
feminine  muscles  —  so  long  cramped  in  the 
cabins.  The  clothes-lines  were  probably  hung 

[  241  1 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

from  tree  to  tree,  unless  poles  were  set  in  the 
sand  for  the  stretching  of  the  drying  lines.  Quite 
possibly  some  of  the  heavier  garments  may 
have  been  spread  out  in  the  sunshine  on  the 
clean  sand. 

Since  the  minds  of  the  Pilgrims  were  ever 
rich  in  reminders  of  Scripture  precedents,  some 
may  have  thought  of  Gideon's  fleece,  laid  out 
on  the  ground,  for  a  token  of  mercy  and  an 
answer  to  prayer.  Perhaps  the  men  extempo- 
rized rough  timber  frames,  with  poles  for  dry- 
ing, in  both  wind  and  sun,  and  called  them 
"clothes-horses,"  after  the  analogy  of  the 
Dutch  word  "easel,"  which  means  the  "little 
donkey,"  to  hold  the  artist's  canvas. 

To-day,  after  three  centuries,  neither  the 
spring  nor  the  red  spruce  can  any  more  be 
found.  The  one  is  covered  by  the  salt  sea,  or 
perhaps  it  has  ceased  to  flow.  The  trees  at  the 
water's  edge  have  disappeared  under  the  wood- 
man's axe,  though  still  plentiful  on  the  distant 
hills.  Yet  the  fragrance  of  the  juniper's  coals  on 
that  washday  still  starts  pleasant  memories. 
The  thought  of  it  still  lightens  toil  in  many  an 
humble  home,  for  those  women  were  figures  in 
a  great  history.  On  Provincetown  sands  they 
made  sweet  and  clean  the  clothing  of  the  men 
and  kept  dainty  their  own  bodies  and  garments. 
[  242  ] 


THE  GLORIOUS  WASH 

That  washday  stands  in  history  as  an  event 
initiative  to  a  grander  history,  in  which  toil  was 
honored.  One  cannot  but  think  of  George  Her- 
bert's verse,  concerning  the  spirit  which  "makes 
drudgery  divine."  Of  ironing-day,  when  the 
clothes,  whether  starched  or  not,  were  "man- 
gled" or  smoothed  out,  we  are  not  told,  but 
probably  the  best  that  could  be  done,  under  the 
circumstances,  was  done. 

Yet,  all  unconsciously,  this  act  of  cleansing 
was,  for  most  of  these  maids  and  mothers,  a 
symbol  of  sorrow  and  the  robing  for  even  a 
longer  pilgrimage.  It  proved  to  be  the  anoint- 
ing, as  it  were,  for  their  own  burial.  Within  a 
few  days,  Dorothy  May  Bradford,  falling  over- 
board, had  found  a  grave  in  the  waters.  Of  the 
eighteen  wives  the  bodies  of  fourteen,  before 
the  winter  was  over,  were  under  the  sod.  The 
vernal  equinox  found  the  Pilgrim  company  re- 
duced one  half. 

There  had  already  been  three  burials  be- 
tween the  casting  and  the  weighing  of  the  an- 
chor. From  their  floating  home  when  at  sea  a 
sailor  and  William  Butten,  the  servant  boy, 
died  and  found  each  an  ocean  grave.  Bradford's 
wife  was  drowned  in  the  harbor.  The  angel  of 
life  had  come  once  during  the  voyage,  the  angel 
of  death  twice.  Of  those  who  found  "  a  vast  and 

[  243  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

wandering  grave"  In  the  great  deep,  and  of  her 
whose  earthly  hfe  ended  in  calm  water,  and  of 
those  who  were  given  earth  burial,  one  might 
say,  Including  all: 

"They  sleep  as  well  beneath  the  purple  waves 
As  those  whose  graves  are  green,"  — 

save  that  of  those  who  died,  whether  on  land  or 
water,  one  might  also  add  that,  of  one  and  of  all, 
the  places  of  sepulture  were  equally  unseen;  for, 
lest  the  savages  might  count  the  losses  of  the 
diminishing  band  and  thus  know  their  weakness, 
no  mounds  were  raised  above  the  soil.  The  earth 
was  leveled  to  hide  the  mournful  fact.  Whether 
on  the  solid  earth  or  the  restless  sea,  the  fifteen 
wives  lay  alike 

"In  the  grave's  democracy." 

Nor  can  one  think,  even  in  Bryant's  words, 
of  any  one  of  these  early  martyrs : 

"His  part,  amid  the  pomp  that  fills 
The  circuit  of  the  summer  hills, 
Is  that  his  grave  is  green"; 

or  find  visible  honors,  even  in  the  democratic 
custom  of  the  Moravians.  Their  cemeteries  — 
as,  for  example,  at  Bethlehem,  Pennsylvania, 
at  Winston-Salem,  North  Carolina,  or  at  Zeist 
in  the  Netherlands  —  show  no  upreared  monu- 
ments nor  any  ostentation  of  grief  or  wealth. 
[  244  ] 


THE  GLORIOUS  WASH 

Life's  conflict  over,  it  Is,  as  with  our  sons  who 
sleep  where, 

"On  Flanders  fields,  the  popples  blow 
Beneath  the  crosses  row  on  row"; 

for  there  is  "no  sepulchral  stone  to  mark  the 
spot."  The  dead,  whether  dying  In  high  office 
or  in  obscurity,  age  or  youth,  bishop  and  babe 
alike,  are  given  equal  honor  —  only  a  flat  me- 
morial slab  resting  on  the  grave's  bosom.  Yet 
over  them  nature  weaves  a  green  carpet  of  love- 
liness in  grasses  or  wild  flowers,  which  was  de- 
nied to  the  first  Pilgrim  mothers. 

Nevertheless,  in  the  equality  of  faith  and  hope 
in  Him  who  Is  able  to  clothe  mortality  with 
immortality  according  to  the  mighty  "working 
whereby  he  is  able  even  to  subdue  all  things 
unto  himself,"  those  who  slept  In  Him  were  laid 
to  rest. 

Who  were  these  Illustrious  "wash-ladies" 
who  thus  on  Massachusetts  soil  made  labor 
honorable  while  adding  to  the  aesthetics  of  life? 
Let  us  scan  Bradford's  list,  made  a  genera- 
tion later,  when  the  little  girls  of  that  historic 
Monday  morning  had  become  brides,  mothers, 
grandmothers,  and  last  survivors.  We  do  not 
usually  begin  at  a  washtub  for  genealogies,  nor 
need  we  swamp  the  narrative  with  names,  but 
rather  briefly  annotate  the  list.  There  were 

[  245  1 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

menservants  and  maidservants  galore  in  the 
company;  but  we  rather  think  that,  for  the  joy 
of  treading  the  soHd  earth  once  more,  all  went 
ashore  who  could,  and  took  part,  even  to  the 
tubs,  just  for  the  fun  of  it,  when  activity  in 
the  open  air  meant  delight  and  health. 


CHAPTER  XXI 
THE  NEW  WORLD:  AMERICA 

Except  at  spots  along  the  Atlantic  coast,  very 
little  of  the  new  world  of  America  was  known 
in  the  England  of  1620.  One  hundred  and 
twenty-three  years  had  passed  away  since  the 
ship  from  Bristol,  commanded  by  the  Cabots, 
had  sighted  the  New  Found  Land.  The  con- 
tinent was  not  then  popularly  called  America, 
nor  were  Its  limits  known,  its  coasts  mapped 
out,  or  its  parts  articulated  into  a  whole.  It  was 
not  until  our  day,  in  the  twentieth  century,  that 
its  northern  lands  and  waters  were  even  fairly 
well  explored. 

Very  little,  therefore,  was  known  by  any, 
even  experts,  concerning  the  real  character  of 
the  soil,  climate,  or  inhabitants,  of  what  the 
English,  after  1609,  called,  with  questionable 
assertion,  "the  northern  parts  of  Virginia." 
There  were  few  or  no  charts  for  the  use  of  navi- 
gators. It  was  because  of  this  dearth  of  special 
knowledge  that  "the  first  ship,"  as  Bradford 
always  calls  the  Mayflower,  was  not  to  reach 
her  desired  haven. 

Learned  ethnologists  and  acute  students  of 

[  247  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

civilization,  with  those  who  hold  theories  of  its 
rise  and  decay,  declare  tliat  upon  the  glaciated 
area  of  the  earth  the  noblest  human  races  in  all 
the  earth  have  arisen.  Be  this  false,  or  be  it 
wholly  or  only  partly  true,  the  largest  concen- 
tration of  English-speaking  people,  mostly  Pil- 
grims and  Puritans,  settled  in  the  region  of  the 
glacier-scratched  bed-rocks  and  of  the  melted 
ice  masses  that  had  created  soil  and  left  boul- 
ders plentifully  on  the  landscape;  from  which 
fact  theorists  may  develop  their  doctrines. 

So  far  from  being  unknown,  this  eastern 
coast  had  already  been  often  visited  by  the 
adventurers  and  fishermen  of  France  and  the 
other  European  countries  fronting  the  Atlantic. 
Cape  Cod  was  a  familiar  point  of  land  for  the 
sailor.  Possibly  the  men  on  a  hundred  vessels 
had  seen  It,  before  those  of  the  Mayflower. 
Dutch  navigators  had  sighted  and  named  it. 
Gosnold  in  1609  had  given  it  its  English  name, 
to  which  sailors  clung  even  when  others  later 
called  it  Cape  James,  after  the  king.  The  very 
first  findings  of  the  Pilgrim  explorers  were 
proofs  of  wreckage  and  of  fortune,  good  and 
bad,  from  the  Old  V^orld.  Not  only  men,  but 
European  women  and  children,  had  come  to 
these  shores  in  the  fishing  boats,  and  some  had 
here  found  their  graves.  Even  the  color  of  the 
[  248  ] 


THE  NEW  WORLD:  AMERICA 

hair  of  the  dead  child  found  by  the  first  explor- 
ing party  was  recognized.  The  bay  had  been 
surveyed  and  a  very  good  map  made  of  it,  and 
the  place  called  Plymouth,  by  Captain  John 
Smith,  who  also  first  named  "New  England." 

Nevertheless,  the  spot  where  the  Pilgrims 
landed  and  began  life  in  the  New  World  was 
not  the  goal  at  which  they  had  aimed,  nor  the 
bourne  where  they  had  hoped  to  settle.  Long 
years  afterwards  Bradford  mourned  the  strait- 
ness  and  poverty  of  the  place,  from  which  so 
many  of  the  original  comers  emigrated  farther 
inland.  Did  Providence  order  it? 

As  to  the  native  inhabitants  it  was  better  for 
the  Pilgrims  that  the  first  neighbors  of  the  ex- 
iles should  be  savages  than  to  have  had  only  the 
loneliness  of  the  land  and  the  menace  of  the 
wild  beasts  ever  before  them.  The  presence  of 
these  Indians  developed  the  manly  virtues  of 
vigilance,  circumspection,  and  courage  in  the 
Pilgrims.  Surrounded,  as  they  were,  with  sav- 
agely, human  and  natural,  they  were  saved 
from  that  softening  of  fiber  which  man  must 
ever  avoid  if  he  is  to  replenish  and  subdue  the 
earth  and  make  nature,  not  his  master,  but  his 
servant.  To  grapple  successfully  with  difficul- 
ties and  obey  the  divine  command,  these  pio- 
neers needed  stimulus  and  even  provocation. 

[  249  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

On  the  other  hand,  it  was  good  to  cultivate 
friendship  with  the  first  owners  of  the  soil.  On 
the  whole,  the  mutual  relations  of  these  white 
and  red  men  were  highly  creditable.  Perhaps 
both  lived  up  to  their  lights. 

Who  were  these  Algonquin  Indians.?  The 
bounds  of  their  habitation  were  east  and 
north  of  the  Iroquois,  who  dominated  most  of 
the  tribes  in  eastern  America.  The  frontiers 
of  the  great  Confederacy,  called  "The  Long 
House,"  were  the  Hudson  River  and  Lake  On- 
tario. Very  little  was  then  known  of  the  differ- 
ences and  varieties  within  the  red  man's  world. 
Now,  with  our  knowledge  of  their  languages, 
traditions,  traits,  and  history,  we  can  clearly 
discern  the  position  and  quality  of  the  North 
American  Indians,  with  as  much  accuracy  as 
we  distinguish  between  Italians  and  Swedes, 
Hindoos  and  Arabs,  Chinese  and  Japanese. 

This  much  is  certain,  that  the  eastern  In- 
dians — •  that  is,  of  the  coast  or  tidewater  re- 
gion—  were  of  the  Algonquin  stock  and  mainly 
hunters  and  fishermen.  As  on  an  island  in  a 
great  ocean,  surrounding  them  on  all  sides,  was 
the  forest  federal  republic  of  the  Iroquois,  com- 
pared with  whom  the  Algonquins  were  a  much 
inferior  race  of  people.  Yet  in  their  long  evolu- 
tion and  struggle  with  nature,  these  had  won 
[  250] 


THE  NEW  WORLD:  AMERICA 

many  victories  and  gained  experiences  which 
they  put  at  the  service  of  their  guests,  the  white 
men.  It  is  more  than  probable  that  in  its  pro- 
longed fight  with  famine  during  the  first  year 
or  two,  when  constantly  confronted  with  the 
menace  of  starvation,  the  Pilgrim  colony  would 
have  failed  and  the  people  all  died,  except  for 
the  kindly  aid  of  their  red  neighbors.  The  In- 
dians taught  the  white  men  how  to  go  out  on  the 
seashore  at  low  tide,  to  tread  out  the  sand  and 
mud,  in  order  to  get  at  the  clams  and  other 
shellfish  for  food.  Many  a  time  did  a  dish  of 
clams  and  cup  of  cold  water  form  a  Pilgrim  din- 
ner. For  months  at  a  time  the  exiles  had  no 
grain ;  for  years  no  milk,  butter,  or  edible  deli- 
cacies. Then,  too,  the  immigrants  were  igno- 
rant of  the  cultivation  of  maize.  It  was  Squanto 
who  taught  the  white  men  how  to  plant  the 
chief  of  American  grains.  They  were  "not  yet 
well  acquainted  with  the  manner  of  Indian 
corn,"  as  Bradford  tells  us,  even  when  they  had 
no  other  grain.  Still  further,  the  natives  taught 
them  de  utilitate  stercorandi,  which  Cicero 
writes  about;  that  is,  the  use  of  home  fertilizers 
—  how  to  plant  a  fish  in  a  hill,  along  with  the 
seed  kernel,  thus  providing  both  moisture  and 
the  needed  elements.  Verily  Squanto  deserves 
a  memorial  statue  as  the  first  American  agricul- 

[251   ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

turist  in  New  England,  even  though  his  later 
record  was  tarnished  with  selfish  intrigue  — •  an 
infirmity  common  to  all  sinners.  Besides  this 
rich  food  grain,  the  white  man  is  indebted  to 
his  red  brother  for  tobacco,  maple  sugar,  snow- 
shoes,  and  wampum,  or  shell  money,  which  for 
the  Pilgrims  ushered  in  an  era  of  prosperity. 

Other  local  devices,  habits,  and  accommoda- 
tions to  the  climate  enabled  the  Pilgrim  to  get 
into  harmony  with  his  environment,  make  na- 
ture his  helper  and  friend,  and  thus  to  survive 
and  flourish.  In  these  our  days,  when  in  ideal, 
pictorial,  plastic,  monumental,  and  literary  art, 
the  Indian  is  the  choice  of  artists,  when  his  fig- 
ure is  seen  on  our  coins  and  State  seals,  when 
also  the  first  Americans  themselves  reproduce 
in  play  and  tableaux  the  very  ancient  and  the 
less  ancient  legends  and  traditions,  as  well  as 
Longfellow's  idealizations  of  New  England  life, 
when  the  Indian's  poetic  and  sonorous  names 
cling  to  our  mountains,  rivers,  and  landmarks, 
when  tens  of  thousands  of  them  are  our  Chris- 
tian brothers,  our  fellow  soldiers  in  the  army, 
our  friends  and  acquaintances  whom  we  honor, 
and  when  we  know  them  as  statesmen,  orators, 
and  philanthropists,  men  of  ideals  and  charac- 
ter, it  is  well  to  do  justice  and  acknowledge  fully 
our  debt  to  our  predecessors  on  the  continent. 
[  252  ] 


THE  NEW  WORLD:  AMERICA 

What  was  the  temper  of  these  early  and  local 
sons  of  the  soil  ?  What  was  their  attitude  toward 
the  new-comers?  One  nineteenth-century  artist 
in  bronze,  in  depicting  the  initial  Indians  of 
colonial  days,  shows  us  a  veteran  warrior  and  a 
yoimg  brave.  The  attitude  is  dual,  as  befits  the 
joy  of  youth  and  the  sedateness  of  age.  The  one 
rich  in  impulse  has  little  knowledge;  while  the 
other  possesses  the  perspective  and  vigilance 
born  of  long  experience.  The  lad,  delighted  with 
the  novelty,  waves  the  friendly  branch  of  wel- 
come and  bids  the  stranger  advance.  The  elder, 
in  austere  pride  and  cold  dignity,  perhaps  with 
the  feeling  of  a  superior  as  lord  of  the  soil,  and 
certainly  that  of  an  equal,  awaits  the  meeting 
with  deliberation  tempered  with  vigilance. 

To  these  Indians  of  this  northeastern  coast 
there  had  come  already  some  bitter  and  discour- 
aging experiences.  The  white  strangers  from 
over  the  sea  were  slave-catchers;  for  this  was 
the  golden  age  of  the  trader  in  human  flesh. 
The  social  conscience  of  the  world  had  not  yet 
been  awakened.  Our  Anglo-Saxon  fathers  were 
not  the  least  sinners  in  this  cruelty  of  man  to 
man.  In  our  language  the  very  name  for  a 
Russian  —  that  of  Slav,  or  Slave  —  reveals  the 
habits  of  our  ancestors.  For  centuries  even  gov- 
ernments, notably  that  of  the  British,  made  the 

[  253  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

basis  of  their  treaty-making  and  diplomacy  the 
advantages  to  be  gained  in  the  slave  trade.  In 
the  original  draft  of  the  American  Declaration 
of  Independence  Jefferson  had  inserted  a  clause 
indicting  the  King  of  England  as  a  slave-catcher. 
In  the  debate  by  Congress  this  was  stricken 
out,  it  being  nearly  a  century  ahead  of  the  time 
when  the  conscience,  first  of  England  and  then 
of  America,  awoke  in  protest  against  what  John 
Wesley  branded  as  the  "sum  of  all  villainies." 

It  was  not,  therefore,  to  be  expected  that 
these  coast  Indians  should  joyfully  welcome, 
with  inviting  gestures,  open  arms,  and  smiling 
faces,  a  company  of  men  of  whom  they  knew 
nothing  and  who  came  with  arms  in  their  hands. 
To  them,  at  first,  the  advent  of  the  Mayflower 
company  seemed  what  might  be  merely  a  fresh 
invasion  of  slave-catchers,  cheats  in  trade,  or 
ruthless  occupiers  of  land  which  the  natives 
may  have  held  sacred,  as  containing  the  graves 
of  their  fathers. 

Happily  for  the  Pilgrim  party  there  were  a 
few  natives  who  had  had  pleasant  experiences 
of  trans-Atlantic  humanity  and  one,  at  least, 
who  had  even  seen  the  white  man's  world  be- 
yond the  great  deep.  Among  these  was  Massa- 
soit,  who  stands  out  as  a  truly  noble  character. 
On  the  other  hand,  Squanto  fell  away  from  his 

[  254  ] 


THE  NEW  WORLD:  AMERICA 

initial  reputation,  and  is  seen  to  have  been  one 
of  the  first  great  American  grafters,  trying  to 
profit  selfishly  at  the  expense  of  both  white  and 
red  men.  Yet  he  repented  and  prayed  that  he 
might  go  to  the  White  Man's  Heaven. 

Nor  need  we  blame  these  men  from  oversea, 
of  Puritan  mould  and  unquailing  courage,  for 
severity,  at  times,  in  their  dealings  with  bad 
Indians.  It  seems  to  be  but  the  plain  truth  that 
the  Pilgrims,  in  their  whole  policy,  were  more 
sinned  against  than  sinning;  for  what  dangers 
and  troubles  they  had  with  the  natives  fell  to 
them  rather  from  the  native  intestine  quarrels, 
jealousies,  and  cruel  ambitions  —  ever  rampant 
in  savage  life  — ■  than  from  their  own  actions. 
For  the  most  part,  the  Pilgrim  policy  and  ac- 
tions show  creditably  their  determination  to  do 
justice  and  love  mercy. 

Indian  heraldry  and  sign  language,  together 
with  tribal  and  family  organization,  their  social 
customs,  superstitions,  religion,  and  the  mind 
of  the  Indian,  are  well  worthy  of  study  —  even 
for  the  testing  of  our  own  ideals.  It  is  certain 
that  the  red  man  was  in  progressive  evolution, 
and  that  the  white  man  at  first  interrupted 
and  hindered  this  development.  Happily  in  our 
time  this  is  changed. 

In  one  notable  instance  both  parties  under- 

[255] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

stood  each  other  without  a  word  spoken  or  any 
documents  written  with  pen  and  ink.  Alutual 
sight  and  insight  wrought  peace.  When  hos- 
tile savages  sent  their  sign  of  war,  a  bundle 
of  arrows  wrapped  in  a  rattlesnake's  skin,  the 
Pilgrim  Governor  returned  the  symbol  stuffed 
with  powder  and  ball.  The  reading  and  under- 
standing of  both  messages  were  instant. 

Nevertheless,  one  may  well  ask  the  question 
implied  in  Pastor  Robinson's  letter  of  1621  — 
who  fired  the  first  hostile  shot  on  New  England 
soil.^  Why  does  not  Massachusetts,  like  New 
York,  own  a  treasury  of  many  wampum  belts, 
significant  of  treaties  of  peace  and  of  mutual 
agreement  between  red  and  white  men?  Why 
no  "Covenant  of  Corlaer".^  Why  no  memories 
of  a  just  man's  name  enshrined  in  Indian  speech 
and  tradition  as  is  that  of  Arendt  Van  Curler  — 
who  was  born  in  Nijkerk  in  the  year  of  the 
Pilgrims'  voyage  —  and  still  applied  as  a  title 
to  the  British  king.'*  Why  no  pictured  wam- 
pum belt,  like  that  showing  William  Penn  and 
a  brother  Indian  hand  in  hand.''  Both  were 
founders  of  a  peace  policy  with  their  red  neigh- 
bors. Why,  unprovoked,  did  the  Indians  let  fly 
their  arrows  at  the  Pilgrim  explorers  ^  Why  was 
there  a  "first  encounter"  and  an  initial  volley 
from  the  white  men  of  the  Mayflower,  against 

[256] 


THE  NEW  WORLD:  AMERICA 

the  ancient  inhabitants  of  the  soil?  The  new- 
comers were  trespassing  on  the  aboriginal  do- 
main, which,  however,  they  thought  belonged 
by  right  to  "Christians."  They  recognized  the 
European  doctrine  of  land  tenure  in  pagan 
regions,  which  was  first  taught  by  the  Holy 
See,  that  "the  heathen"  were  the  rightful  in- 
heritance of  the  "saints."  The  pope's  bull  of 
May  3,  1493,  had  divided  the  world  between 
Spain  and  Portugal.  In  both  papal,  Tudor,  and 
Stuart  law,  it  was  proclaimed  that  all  savage 
lands  belonged  to  "Christians." 

No  such  doctrine  of  the  divine  right  of  Chris- 
tians to  seize  the  pagan  inhabitants  was  held 
in  the  Dutch  Republic,  or  by  the  settlers  of 
New  York  or  Pennsylvania.  In  their  documents 
the  right  of  the  aborigines  to  the  soil  was  ex- 
plicitly recognized,  and  with  them  formal  trea- 
ties of  peace  were  at  once  made,  the  land  being 
bought  from  them  before  permanent  occupa- 
tion by  the  whites. 

Nevertheless,  no  such  agreements  between 
the  red  and  the  white  men  could  have  the  moral 
sanction  or  the  binding  force  of  treaties  made 
by  men  on  the  same  levels  of  culture.  What  the 
Indian  meant  was  to  allow  the  white  men  to 
come  as  guests.  The  savages  knew  nothing  of 
transferable  property  in  land,  guaranteed  by 

[  257  1 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

signed  documents,  or  of  sale  and  possession  in 
fee  simple.  They  could  and  did  Imagine  nothing 
else  than  joint  occupation.  In  the  Middle  Re- 
gion the  first  mutual  approaches  were  equally 
friendly;  while  In  New  England  the  contact  of 
races  was  one  of  mutual  hostility  and  of  almost 
permanent  misunderstanding. 

Yet  it  was  no  fault  of  the  Pilgrims  that  this 
was  so,  and  there  are  two  explanations,  both 
valid. 

When  Mark  Twain  told  the  English  that 
they  were  "  the  only  modern  people  mentioned 
in  the  Bible,"  they  laughed  heartily  —  that  is, 
some  time  after  they  recognized  that  he  was 
joking.  He  quoted  from  the  Beatitudes  — ■  "The 
meek  shall  inherit  the  earth."  Claiming  their 
right  to  the  North  American  continent,  be- 
cause of  Cabot's  peep,  in  the  high  latitudes,  at 
a  small  portion  of  it,  the  King  of  England  called 
America,  north  of  Florida,  his  own  and  that  of 
his  successors,  heirs,  and  assigns. 

The  crown  parceled  out  the  land  in  charters 
granted  to  various  trading  companies,  very 
much  in  the  style  of  Norman  feudalism — from 
the  vestiges  of  which  England  is  not  yet  wholly 
free.  It  was  out  of  these  charters  that  the  col- 
onies grew  Into  States  and  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  had  its  evolution. 
[  258  ] 


THE  NEW  WORLD:  AMERICA 

Against  this  theory  of  land  possession  and 
tenure,  common  to  nations  of  southern  Europe 
and  inherited  from  them,  was  that  of  the  Dutch. 
They  declared  the  soil  of  the  new  countries  to 
be  settled  to  belong  so  far  to  the  natives  that 
their  claims  must  be  satisfied  and  titles  ex- 
tinguished before  foreign  ownership  was  or 
could  be  claimed  or  colonization  be  made. 
Hence  in  the  charter  of  the  Dutch  West  India 
Company  it  was  stipulated,  not  that  the  settlers 
might,  but  that  they  must,  buy  the  land  of  the 
Indians;  and  this  they  did.  The  precedent  in 
North  America  fixed  by  the  Walloon  Governor, 
Peter  Minuit,  in  his  purchase  of  Manhattan, 
was  the  one  followed  regularly  and  often  in 
New  Netherland,  and  again  by  William  Penn, 
who  was  half  Welsh  and  half  Dutch.  To  this 
the  local  records  and  wampum  belts  still  tes- 
tify. In  New  England,  not  the  pretext,  but 
the  fundamental  reason  for  the  banishment  of 
Roger  Williams  from  Massachusetts  to  Rhode 
Island  was  a  political  one;  namely,  he  vehe- 
mently insisted  that  the  English  lacked  a 
valid  title  to  the  land,  which  belonged  to  the 
Indians,  and  that  the  King  of  England  had  no 
just  right  to  the  soil  either  to  claim  or  to  give 
away. 

There  is  perhaps  still  another  valid  reason  for 

[  259  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

the  necessity,  laid  upon  the  Plymouth  men,  to 
shed  blood  in  self-defense.  There  was,  in  eastern 
America,  outside  of  the  Iroquois  Confederacy, 
no  such  political  unity  that  implied  moral  and 
personal  responsibility  laid  upon  individuals  or 
local  bands  of  offenders  who  broke  the  peace. 
Even  the  credit  of  Penn's  treaty,  "never  sworn 
to  and  never  broken,"  as  Voltaire  boasted,  was 
probably  due  as  much  to  the  Iroquois  as  to  the 
Quakers.  The  Delawares,  or  Lenni-Lenape  In- 
dians, as  vassals  of  the  mighty  Confederacy, 
were  held,  under  pressure  of  the  Iroquois,  to 
the  older  and  greater  "Covenant  of  Corlaer." 
Had  the  same  unity  of  mind  and  responsibil- 
ity of  action  been  in  working  vitality  with 
the  Massachusetts  Indians,  there  would,  in  all 
probability,  have  been  no  "first  encounter" 
with  the  white  men. 

Why,  from  the  Indian's  point  of  view,  was  a 
flight  of  arrows  their  first  greeting  to  men  of 
such  noble  character  as  the  Pilgrims  .f*  They 
came,  not  only  as  friends,  but  were  of  such 
scrupulous  honesty  as  to  wish  to  pay  even  for 
the  corn  found  in  the  land. 

It  was  no  fault  of  the  Mayflower  men  that 
they  were  first  attacked.  We  shall  see  how  it 
happened. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

CAPTAIN  MILES  STANDISH  AND  HIS  LITTLE 
ARMY 

The  word  and  name  "Miles"  means  a  soldier, 
and  the  Pilgrim  captain  and  hero  had  not  only 
physical  valor,  but  what  many  a  dashing  war- 
rior lacks  • —  moral  courage. 

Of  the  personal  history  of  Standish  (1584- 
1656)  previous  to  1620  little  is  known.  At  the 
end  of  Bell  Alley,  in  Leyden,  in  which  many  of 
the  Pilgrim  people  lived  with  their  pastor,  and 
the  "  church  " — which,  like  those  churches  men- 
tioned in  the  New  Testament,  was  not  a  build- 
ing of  any  kind,  but  a  company  of  souls  in,  or 
out  of,  a  house  —  there  was  a  "commandery" 
or  barracks,  in  which  the  British  auxiliaries, 
or  "help  troops,"  were  quartered.  Here,  most 
probably,  both  the  Separatists  and  the  men 
who  earned  the  king's  or  the  queen's  shilling 
met  and  got  acquainted  with  each  other.  Pas- 
tor Robinson  evidently  knew  Standish  well.  In 
his  letter  to  Bradford,  dated  December  19, 1623, 
he  mourns  that  any  Indians  were  killed  by  his 
people.  "How  happy  a  thing  it  had  been  if  you 
had  converted  some  before  you  had  killed  any." 

[261  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

Robinson  lived  in  a  country  where  prison 
reform  had  already  begun.  He  wrote  suggest- 
ing "the  punishments  to  a  few  and  the  fear  to 
many."  Then  he  adds,  summing  up  the  char- 
acter of  Standish,  "Consider  the  disposition  of 
your  captain,  whom  I  love  and  am  persuaded 
the  Lord  in  great  mercy  and  for  great  good  hath 
sent  you  him,  if  you  use  him  aright.  He  is  a 
man  humble  and  meek  amongst  you  and  to- 
ward all  in  ordinary  course." 

A  splendid  commendation  surely!  Robinson 
had  no  anxiety  about  Standish,  that  he  would 
be  cruel  or  bloodthirsty,  but  he  feared  that 
weaker  men  might  unjustly  kill  and  then  justify 
themselves  from  the  example  set  before  them 
by  the  captain,  but  misunderstood. 

While  on  board  the  ship  and  pressed  by 
Captain  Jones  and  the  crew,  as  Bradford  sev- 
eral times  mentions,  to  get  off  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible, and  settle  down  —  a  party  "tendered 
themselves"  to  explore  the  land  for  a  place  of 
settlement.  Thinking  that  a  river  was  in  sight, 
sixteen  well-armed  men,  under  Standish,  faced 
the  possible  dangers  of  exploration  and  set  off 
along  the  beach  on  the  15  th  of  November.  Soon 
they  saw  five  or  six  human  beings  and  a  dog 
approaching.  These  at  once  ran  into  the  woods. 
"The  English  followed  them,  partly  to  see  if 
[  262  ] 


STANDISH  AND  HIS  LITTLE  ARMY 

they  could  speake  with  them  and  partly  to 
discover  if  there  might  not  be  more  of  them 
lying  in  ambush."  The  Indians  continued  to 
retreat  and  the  whites  followed  the  trail  left  in 
the  sand.  Darkness  coming  on,  the  squad,  after 
posting  sentinels,  went  into  camp  for  the  night, 
during  which  nothing  happened. 

In  the  explorations  continued  next  morning, 
they  lighted  upon  a  pond  of  fresh  water.  Here 
they  took  their  first  American  drink.  They 
found  some  cleared  cornfields,  in  stubble,  be- 
sides the  remnants  of  a  habitation,  with  a 
kettle  and  sawed  plank.  Their  first  sight  of 
maize  or  Indian  corn  gave  them  a  surprise,  as 
they  noted  several  colors  upon  the  cob.  They 
could  not  decide  fully  as  to  the  geography  of 
the  place;  but,  fearing  lest  their  families  should 
worry  over  their  absence,  they  returned  to  the 
ship,  having  found  no  real  river  or  place  to 
settle  upon.  Possibly  the  children  at  this  time 
made  their  initial  acquaintance  with  pop-corn. 

The  shallop  having  been  repaired,  the  second 
exploration  was  made  in  her  and  on  the  water. 
This  time,  made  cautious  lest  the  Indians  seen 
should  have  given  the  alarm  and  come  upon 
them  in  numbers,  thirty  men  went  on  the  ven- 
ture. It  was  soon  made  clear  that  there  was  no 
ship  harbor,  but  they  found  hoes  and  Indian 

1 263] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

huts,  with  plenty  of  corn  and  beans.  These 
they  brought  away,  for  which  six  months  later 
they  made  payment. 

This  little  voyage  proved  to  be  their  salva- 
tion from  famine,  and  perhaps  from  the  star- 
vation which  impended  some  months  later;  for 
the  corn  found  served  them  for  seed  and  a  new 
crop  in  the  spring.  Thus,  their  first  boat  voyage 
in  American  waters  yielded  an  even  balance  of 
disappointment  and  blessing. 

Foul  weather  followed,  for  they  were  now  in 
a  bleak  land  that  promised  speedily  to  weed 
out  the  weak  and  spare  only  the  strong.  Start- 
ing out  again,  on  December  6,  "intending  to 
circulate  that  deep  bay  of  Cape  Cod,"  they 
took  ten  principal  men  and  some  sailors.  The 
ground  was  frozen  hard  and  white  with  snow, 
and  the  salt  spray,  freezing  on  their  coats, 
glazed  them  with  ice.  Arriving  at  the  bottom 
of  the  bay  by  dark,  they  saw  ten  or  twelve 
Indians  busy  at  something.  The  shores  being 
"so  full  of  flats"  they  had  hard  work  to  find  a 
landing-place.  They  built  a  barricade  of  logs 
and  boughs.  Then  posting  a  sentinel,  they  lay 
down  to  rest,  tired  enough.  The  light  of  the 
Indian  fires  was  visible  in  the  distance. 

When  morning  came  they  divided  into  two 
parties  for  the  coast  and  the  woods.  They 

[264] 


STANDISH  AND  HIS  LITTLE  ARMY 

lighted  upon  the  Indian  camp  of  the  night  be- 
fore, at  which  the  red  men  had  cut  up  a  small 
whale  or  grampus.  On  the  beach  lay  also  two 
carcasses  blown  by  the  strong  wind  on  to  the 
flats.  No  acceptable  place  for  a  town  could  be 
found,  and  not  till  night  did  the  two  parties 
meet. 

This  time  a  stronger  barricade  was  built, 
to  the  height  of  a  man,  the  space  being  en- 
closed on  three  sides  in  order  to  guard  against 
being  surrounded  by  the  savages.  A  fire  was 
made  in  the  middle.  Then  they  lay  down  for 
rest,  not  knowing  that  at  daylight  there  would 
be  a  battle  between  men  still  in  the  stone  age 
and  those  of  the  iron  age. 

At  midnight  the  watcher  called  out,  "Arm! 
Arm!"  A  hideous  cry  thought  to  be  that  of 
wolves,  but  really  an  Indian  war-whoop,  was 
heard.  Standing  to  their  guns  they  made  ready, 
but  nothing  happened.  A  couple  of  muskets, 
promptly  shot  oif,  possibly  saved  them  from  a 
rush  of  Indians.  So,  wrapping  their  loaded 
flintlocks  with  their  coats,  to  keep  their  powder 
dry,  they  rested  until  5  a.m.  Then,  after  prayer, 
and  while  breakfast  was  being  got  ready,  some 
went  to  the  shore.  Finding  the  tide  not  suffi- 
ciently high  they  came  back  for  food. 

Suddenly  the    same  cry  heard  during   the 

f.  26s  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS  ' 

darkness,  but  with  variant  note,  now  rang  in 
their  ears.  One  of  the  men  nearest  the  woods 
came  flying  into  camp,  shouting,  "Men,  In- 
dians! Indians!"  In  a  moment  arrows  flew  all 
around  them.  Without  panic,  after  two  guns 
fired,  Standish  posted  a  couple  of  his  men  at 
the  entrance,  ordering  them  not  to  shoot  until 
they  had  taken  good  aim.  Some  had  run  down 
to  the  beach  to  get  their  guns.  The  others, 
quickly  donning  their  armor,  and  seeing  that 
the  Indians  were  "wheeling  about  them," 
grasped  their  cutlasses  and  were  ready  to  rush 
out  and  charge  the  foe.  Securing  their  firearms 
the  men  from  the  boat  let  fly  at  the  red  men, 
who  all  ran,  except  one  bold  fellow,  who  stood 
behind  a  tree.  At  short  range  he  shot  three 
arrows.  He  stood  his  ground  while  three  bullets 
from  excited  men  failed  to  hit  him.  At  last, 
after  deliberate  aim  taken  by  a  musketeer,  one 
ball  came  so  close  as  to  knock  the  bark  and 
splinters  about  his  ears.  Then,  after  a  defiant 
war-whoop,  he  fled.  Most  of  the  white  men 
started  in  pursuit,  running  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
or  so  and  firing  two  or  three  shots.  Returning, 
some  of  them  found  their  coats,  which  had 
been  hung  up,  pierced  with  shafts,  but  no  man 
had  been  hit.  Thereupon  they  gave  thanks  and 
praise  to  God.  Gathering  up  some  of  the  arrows 
[  266  ] 


STANDISH  AND  HIS  LITTLE  ARMY 

they  sent  them  later  to  England  as  trophies 
and  curiosities. 

Embarking  once  more  and  following  the  ad- 
vice of  their  pilot,  Coppin,  they  pointed  the 
prow  of  the  shallop  to  the  promised  harbor.  A 
terrible  storm  arose  which  broke  their  rudder 
and  shivered  their  mast  into  three  pieces.  By 
hard  rowing  and  with  intrepid  spirit,  though 
barely  escaping  shipwreck  and  missing  the 
expected  harbor,  they  finally  got  ashore  on 
an  island  (Clark's)  and  camped  out,  enjoying 
mightily  a  big  fire,  while  happy  to  be  free  from 
Indians. 

During  the  night  the  wind  changed  and  it 
froze  hard,  but  the  next  day,  Saturday,  was 
sunshiny.  So  they  dried  their  clothes,  put  their 
guns  in  order,  and  gave  thanks  to  God.  They 
kept  Sabbath  conscientiously.  It  is  this  episode 
that  is  illustrated  in  the  granite,  in  high-relief, 
in  the  facade  of  the  Congregational  House  on 
Beacon  Street  in  Boston.  The  work  was  done  by 
a  Spaniard  during  our  war  with  Spain  in  1898. 

On  Monday  they  were  glad  to  find  a  har- 
bor fit  for  shipping,  with  Indian  cornfields  and 
fresh  water  in  running  brooks  near  by.  Re- 
turning to  the  Mayflower  they  told  the  good 
news  and  all  were  happy  at  the  thought  of 
soon  living  under  a  roof. 

[267] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

During  December  15  and  16  the  ship  beat 
about  and  reached  the  desired  haven.  On  the 
25th,  or  Christmas  Day,  they  "began  to  erect 
the  first  house  for  common  use  to  receive  them 
and  their  goods."  Thus  of  necessity  they  re- 
verted to  the  ancient  plan  of  all  living  under 
one  roof,  in  a  "house,"  without  separate  apart- 
ments save  as  those  were  made  by  dividing 
off  the  space  by  means  of  temporary  curtains. 
The  story  of  the  evolution  of  the  modern  dwell- 
ing-house is  one  of  fascinating  interest.  In  the 
case  of  the  Pilgrims  separate  homes  were  to 
come  later,  on  Leyden  Street,  the  first  and 
oldest  in  New  England,  named  long  afterwards. 

Continuing  the  military  history  we  note  that 
when  the  common  house  had  been  built  it  was 
made  at  once  a  fort,  a  church,  and  a  home. 
Four  cannon  were  landed  and  mounted  in  bat- 
tery on  the  roof.  These,  we  may  be  sure,  had  a 
powerful  moral  effect  upon  the  hostile  Indians 
who  saw  or  heard  the  big  guns  fired.  On  Febru- 
ary 27,  1 62 1,  a  military  company  was  formed, 
with  officers,  drummers,  trumpeters,  etc.,  and 
Standish  was  given  full  military  authority. 

Not  all  the  men  liked  discipline.  One  of  the 

captain's  first  acts  was  to  function  as  provost 

or  chief  of  police.  The  rufiian  Billlngton,  besides 

refusing  to  obey  orders,  had  given  impudence  to 

[  268  ] 


STANDISH  AND  HIS  LITTLE  ARMY 

his  superior  officer.  So  the  captain  had  the  mu- 
tineer tied  by  the  neck  and  heels  and  put  in  the 
guardhouse  for  twenty-four  hours. 

A  more  agreeable  task  fell  to  Standish  when 
Massasolt,  with  twenty  warriors,  leaving  their 
knives,  bows,  and  arrows  behind  them,  entered 
the  settlement.  The  Governor  and  some  men  in 
armor,  with  the  captain,  drummers,  and  trump- 
eters, met  their  red  brothers  and  a  treaty  of 
peace  was  made,  with  due  presents,  potations, 
and  eatables. 

On  another  occasion  Standish  was  sent  to 
accomplish  what  is  now  often  done  by  tele- 
graph or  telephone  and  the  local  police;  that  is, 
to  catch  a  thief.  An  Indian  had  stolen  some 
beads  and  a  pair  of  scissors  from  the  trading 
shallop  while  it  was  lying  in  a  creek.  Standish 
served  notice  on  Aspinet,  the  chief,  that  he 
must  deliver  up  either  the  goods  or  the  thief. 
Then,  refusing  all  gifts  or  courtesies,  he  went 
away.  The  sachem,  after  flogging  the  culprit, 
and  making  the  women  bake  bread  for  the  crew 
of  the  boat,  came  to  Plymouth  next  day  to 
make  apologies.  This  he  did  in  such  form,  by 
kneeling  and  licking  the  hands  of  the  great 
white  chief,  as  to  produce  more  merriment  than 
solemnity. 

Bastions  and  gateways  were  added  to  the  fort 

[269] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

in  due  time  and  the  soldiers  were  trained  to  act 
as  a  fire  company.  Of  tliis  they  had  need,  profit- 
ing by  a  recent  experience  of  danger.  Looking 
from  the  ship,  still  in  the  harbor,  the  sailors 
thought  the  Indians  had  made  an  attack  and 
set  fire  to  the  common  house.  It  proved,  how- 
ever, to  be  only  a  blaze  caused  by  a  spark  from 
the  hearth  fire  which  had  kindled  the  thatch  on 
the  roof.  Carver  and  Bradford  had  to  rise  from 
their  sick  beds  to  put  out  the  flames  and  thus 
save  the  building  from  explosion  and  total  loss. 

In  mid-winter,  when  the  dangers  of  starva- 
tion, like  a  gaunt  wolf,  faced  them,  Standish 
took  boat  to  Barnstable  Harbor.  There,  ever 
vigilant,  he  overawed  all  treachery  and,  in 
trade,  gained  the  needed  corn. 

After  Winslow  had  been  kind  to  Massasoit, 
visiting  and  helping  him  In  his  sickness,  the 
sachem,  in  gratitude,  revealed  a  plot  of  some  of 
his  bad  neighbors  to  attack  and  kill  all  the  Ply- 
mouth people.  The  aborigines  hoped  thus  to 
wipe  out  the  settlement  of  the  aliens,  as  had 
been  more  than  once  done  in  other  places,  from 
Raleigh's  time  to  theirs.  After  a  council  of  war 
the  captain  and  eight  of  his  bravest  men  were 
sent  to  the  wigwam  of  the  conspirators.  In  a 
hand-to-hand  fight  seven  Indians  were  slain, 
and  one  was  afterwards  hanged. 
[  270  ] 


STANDISH  AND  HIS  LITTLE  ARMY 

According  to  the  custom  of  ages,  in  Europe 
and  Asia,  these  men  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury ''made  an  example."  In  the  old  countries 
they  — •  that  is,  kings  and  judges  —  even  dug 
up  corpses  to  cut  off  and  stick  up  the  heads. 
They  even  hanged  coffins  with  chains,  in  the 
barbarous  savagery  of  revenge.  The  head  of  the 
ringleader,  Wituwamut,  was  impaled  on  one  of 
the  palisades  of  the  Plymouth  fort.  These  were 
the  days  when,  not  the  reformation  of  crimi- 
nals, but  only  their  punishment,  was  sought. 

At  another  time,  on  the  outside  of  the  main 
gate,  according  to  the  custom  followed  as  a 
deterrent  in  the  old  countries,  the  skull  of  a  bad 
Indian,  duly  executed,  was  nailed  and  remained 
fixed  for  a  long  time.  A  pair  of  wrens  made  their 
nest  where  a  man's  brains  had  been,  using  the 
spine-hole  as  entrance  and  exit  and  seemed 
happy  enough.  How  the  children  must  have 
clapped  their  hands  at  this  odd  bird-box! 

Standish  figured  in  other  adventures,  less 
romantic  or  amusing.  One  of  these  was  a  voy- 
age to  England  on  business  for  the  Pilgrims. 
Another  was  a  naval  expedition  to  Penobscot, 
in  which  the  two  colonies  "Old"  and  "New" 
joined.  A  Frenchman  had  carried  things  with  a 
high  hand  and  confiscated  a  trading  station. 
Again,  in  1645,  the  captain  made  ready  to  lead 

[  271  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

a  company  of  soldiers  in  the  expedition  against 
hostile  Indians,  which  was  under  the  authority 
of  the  New  England  Confederation.  Standish 
thus,  in  his  lifetime,  served  under  no  fewer  than 
five  sovereignties. 

In  later  years,  from  163 1,  he,  like  Brewster, 
made  his  home  at  Duxbury,  where  to-day  stand 
his  house  and  an  imposing  memorial  shaft 
reared  by  his  descendants  and  admirers.  He  was 
one  of  the  most  important  personages  in  the 
seaside  republic.  His  sword  is  said  to  be  In- 
cised with  two  inscriptions,  one  in  Cuiic,  and 
the  other  with  Arabic  characters,  which  is  in  the 
museum  at  Plymouth.  It  may  have  been  forged 
before  the  Christian  era,  and  possibly  used  in 
the  crusades.  Was  it  captured  first  from  a  Sara- 
cen or  a  Moor,  and  again  in  the  Netherlands 
from  some  Spaniard,  whose  ancestor  helped  to 
expel  the  Africans?  In  1881  an  Arabic  scholar 
professed  to  read  the  mediaeval  Inscription 
thus:  "With  peace  God  rules  His  creatures  and 
with  the  judgment  of  His  arm  He  troubles  the 
might  of  the  wicked."  This  seems  to  be  the 
Oriental  view  of  the  Divine;  while  the  motto  of 
Massachusetts  may  be  cited  as  the  human  view 
of  the  case. 

It  verges  on  the  ridiculous  to  picture  Miles 
Standish  as  either  a  typical  Pilgrim  or  a  Puri- 
[  272  ] 


STANDISH  AND  HIS  LITTLE  ARMY 

tan,  as  does  Lowell;  while  Longfellow's  sketch 
is  pretty  poetry,  but  not,  in  detail,  historic  fact. 
He  was  a  brave  soldier,  and,  like  Ulysses  Grant, 
will  be  remembered  chiefly  in  this  line  of  service 
and  duty.  Whatever  may  have  been  his  deepest 
convictions,  or  at  what  spiritual  fountains  he 
fed  his  soul,  his  conscience  was  clear  and  his  sin- 
cerity genuine.  Right  well  does  he  deserve  the 
stately  memorial  shaft  and  the  bronze  statue 
which,  at  Duxbury,  serve  to  remind  us  of  a  true 
hero  and  a  loyal  soul. 

Seen  in  perspective  there  was  no  case  In 
which  Captain  Standish  misused  his  power  as 
a  military  man.  In  every  Instance  he  and  his 
force  obeyed  the  orders  of  the  civil  magistrate. 
The  Pilgrim  Republic  gave  the  world  a  noble 
example  of  self-government,  of  the  people,  for 
the  people,  and  by  the  people.  This  discipline 
and  subordination  of  the  citizen  soldiers  to  law 
and  order  became  the  model  for  a  nation. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 
THE  FIRST  WINTER  AND  THE  GREAT  SICKNESS 

So  long  as  the  people  called  Pilgrims  followed 
the  ordinary  routine  of  life  on  land,  whether  in 
the  north  country  of  England  or  in  the  Nether- 
lands, they  enjoyed  at  least  ordinarily  good 
health.  When,  however,  they  were  transferred 
to  crowded  quarters  on  a  small  ship,  with 
wretched  accommodations,  poor  food,  bad  ven- 
tilation, and  few  or  no  comforts,  the  seeds  of 
disease,  even  before  they  landed,  were  sown  in 
their  bodies.  What  can  now,  in  the  way  of 
nourishment  and  safeguard,  be  foreseen  and 
furnished  for  a  long  ocean  voyage,  was  not  then 
known.  Cruises  of  three  years  or  more,  like 
those  of  Nordenskjold,  who  found  the  north- 
east passage  to  Japan,  or  of  Amundsen,  who 
achieved  the  northwestern  water  path  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  can  be  taken  without 
fear  of  scurvy  — ■  the  ancient  scourge  of  the 
sailor.  Now  seamen  long  Imprisoned,  even  in 
icy  seas,  come  out  in  splendid  health,  what- 
ever be  the  limit  of  time  or  space.  Our  own 
Schley-Greely  expedition,  and  Peary's  triumph 
at  the  North  Pole,  show  of  what  the  human 

[  274  ] 


THE  FIRST  WINTER 

constitution  is  capable  when  the  body  is  well 
nourished. 

Of  old,  naval  enterprises  were  often  ruined 
and  whole  fleets  frequently  prostrated  with  the 
scurvy.  Within  our  time  garden  vegetables,  es- 
pecially the  onion,  with  the  citric  fruits,  have 
almost  wholly  conquered  this  dread  disease.  In 
some  navies  only  the  very  old  surgeons  have 
seen  a  case.  Added  to  this  is  the  knowledge  of 
preventive  medicine  that  saves  annually  mil- 
lions of  lives  and  which  has  enabled  man  to  con- 
quer climates.  Still  further,  the  "leech-craft," 
that  reveals  the  power  of  insects  as  carriers  of 
infection,  has  armed  the  white  man  who  must 
live  in  the  hot  countries  against  tropical  dis- 
eases. What  was  for  the  individual  as  well  as  in 
epidemics  formerly  classed  as  "mysterious"  or 
"the  act  of  God"  has  been  brought  into  the 
light  of  science.  "The  pestilence  that  walketh 
in  darkness"  is  still  with  us,  but  we  can  arm 
against  its  coming  and  shorten  its  stay  among 
us. 

At  home,  or  in  Holland,  these  people  fol- 
lowed a  regimen  that,  in  its  working  in  daily  life, 
is  better  than  the  whole  apparatus  of  mod- 
ern cure,  with  its  serums,  anaesthetics,  tonics, 
and  sedatives,  with  the  various  and  villainous 
patent  medicines  or  nostrums  that  sell  chiefly 

[  275  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

because  of  lying  advertisements.  Better  than 
all  these  put  together,  with  also  the  array  of 
hospitals,  trained  nurses,  and  the  droves  of 
young  men  and  women  graduated  from  our 
medical  schools  and  equipped  with  the  last  new 
theories  —  whether  "still  in  the  air"  or  thor- 
oughly tested  —  the  devices  and  the  much- 
heralded  methods  of  therapeutics  and  surgery, 
was  and  is  a  correct  method  of  life.  Theories 
of  medicine  change  with  every  generation;  this, 
never.  Most  of  these  modern  things,  excellent 
though  they  be,  are  only  able  to  cure.  Gospel 
precepts  and  common  sense  do  not  and  did  not 
wait  for  a  cure.  They  anticipated  it.  That  rule 
was  and  is  prevention  through  cleanliness,  plain 
food,  good  sleep,  purity  of  life,  abstemiousness, 
exercise,  fasting,  and  whatever  fortifies  the  con- 
stitution against  the  assaults  of  disease  from 
within  or  from  without.  While  warding  oif  or 
neutralizing  infection  through  external  influ- 
ences, right  living  also  keeps  the  inner  machin- 
ery of  body  and  mind  in  perfect  condition 
yielding  a  daily  delight  in  life.  Of  the  house  we 
live  in  we  ought  to  be  InteUIgent  tenants. 

With  the  Pilgrim  mothers  and  maidens  no 
high  heels  on  th.eir  shoes  tilted  the  bodily  frame 
out  of  the  perpendicular,  producing  round 
shoulders  and  in  later  life  mysterious  nervous 

12761 


THE  FIRST  WINTER 

and  other  disorders  which  are  usually  charged 
to  "Divine  Providence."  No  gluttony,  excess 
of  flesh  food,  luxury  of  pastry,  confectionery, 
sweet  drinks,  or  other  fat-producing  excess  of 
nourishment  spoiled  the  lovely  figures  of  the 
women  or  buried  the  normal  female  outlines 
and  proportions  In  masses  of  unlovely  adipose. 
As  well  as  Boerhave  of  Leyden,  or  any  professor 
of  modern  science,  they  knew  that  "disease 
enters  by  the  mouth,"  and  that  women,  prob- 
ably as  often  as  men,  "dig  their  graves  with 
their  teeth."  The  sum  of  the  wisdom  of  Boer- 
have, whose  fame  extended  from  China  to  Eng- 
land, was  condensed  in  his  three  rules,  "Keep 
the  feet  warm,  the  head  cool,  and  the  bowels 
regular." 

Nor  is  It  at  all  likely  that,  since  Queen  Eliza- 
beth had  a  narrow  waist  —  which  every  Imitat- 
ing courtier  and  dandy,  whether  male  or  fe- 
male, tried,  with  more  or  less  success,  to  imitate, 
using  the  stays  and  lacings  of  the  period  — 
many  of  the  Puritan  women  followed  that  very 
high  and  very  bad  example.  Their  poverty  was 
a  blessing,  even  as  their  simple  life  was  an  ideal, 
and  they  had  daily  an  amount  of  exercise  suffi- 
cient for  the  maintenance  of  health.  Their  dress 
was  neat,  wholesome,  and  attractive,  while  se- 
curing good  circulation  and  digestion.  Except 

[  277  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

mention  of  hard  and  prolonged  labors  for  a  live- 
lihood, we  have  in  Bradford's  History  no  refer- 
ence to  disease  among  them,  while  in  their  vari- 
ous places  of  sojourn  or  even  during  their  minor 
voyages. 

How  changed  was  all  this  during  the  first  two 
months  of  their  settling  in  America  is  recorded 
by  Bradford  with  a  pathos  born  of  experience. 
Theirs  was  a  chronicle  of  death  rather  than  of 
life.  We  read  of  no  births,  but  of  over  fifty 
deaths,  leaving  but  one  half  of  the  company 
alive.  In  Bradford's  doleful  and  varied  vocabu- 
lary we  read  of  the  "infection,"  "the  sickness," 
and  the  "visitation,"  which  fell  alike  on  those 
afloat  and  those  on  shore,  "so  as  almost  half  of 
their  [ship's]  company  died  before  they  went 
away."  Pale  death,  as  the  Roman  poet  pic- 
tured, with  equal  footstep  knocked  at  cabin 
door  and  at  the  common  house  on  land. 

Is  that  the  reason  why  "Horace"  is  such  a 
favorite  name  in  New  England  families.'' 

A  recent  writer  tells  us  that,  whereas  the  bot- 
tom of  the  modern  sea,  from  1819  to  191 9,  be- 
tween the  two  continents  facing  the  Atlantic, 
might  be  traced  by  the  ashes  of  the  coal  burned 
in  the  furnaces  —  and  soon  to  give  way  to  cin- 
derless  oil  fuel,  that  feeds  the  motors  of  steam- 
ship or  aeroplane  —  before  this  era  of  steam  the 
[  278  ] 


THE  GREAT  SICKNESS 

track  under  the  waves,  from  1600  to  1800,  was 
made  by  human  bones.  On  the  contrary,  the 
scores  of  burials  of  the  Mayflower's  crew  and 
passengers,  whether  sHd  from  the  plank  into 
the  deep  or  carried  from  the  sick  house,  were 
almost  every  one,  indeed  all  except  two,  at  the 
end  of  the  voyage. 

Why  and  how?  Such  an  episode  of  fatality 
seems  incredible  to-day;  but  let  us  remember: 

1.  Their  crowded  quarters.  Many  an  Erie 
Canal  boat  is  larger  in  cargo  space  than  was 
the  Mayflower,  of  only  180  tons;  which  car- 
ried the  crew,  102  passengers,  and  stores  and 
food  for  both  the  outgoing  and  the  return 
voyage. 

2.  Of  the  Leyden  party  a  majority  had  been 
afloat  over  four  months.  Scurvy,  or  a  tendency 
to  this  disease,  must  have  been  prevalent. 

3.  Their  limited  accommodations  meant 
crowding  beyond  the  possibilities  of  comfort, 
to  say  nothing  of  health. 

4.  Their  bill  of  fare  was  very  limited  and 
their  monotonous  diet  tended  to  scurvy.  There 
were  no  anti-scorbutic  rations;  nor,  except 
when  at  home  on  land,  in  practice  of  common 
sense  and  the  guidance  and  control  of  their 
palates  did  they  have  a  scientific  conception  of 
the  value  of  vegetables  as  preventives.  Meal, 

[  279  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

salt  meat,  and  beer  made  the  routine,  served 
probably  twice  a  day. 

5.  Excepting  in  a  general  way  the  dangers 
from  infection  of  the  well  by  the  sick,  through 
sneezing,  coughing,  expectoration,  and  the  kiss- 
ing, even  of  babies  by  their  mothers,  were  not 
known  or  suspected. 

6.  Although  not  an  exceptionally  cold  winter 
the  lack  of  good  boats  fitted  for  landing  facili- 
ties and  the  necessity  of  the  men,  and  possibly, 
at  times,  the  women  and  children,  of  wading 
part  of  the  way  ashore  in  the  icy  waters,  amid 
sleet  and  spray,  was  the  cause  of  their  colds  and 
pulmonary  troubles.  Several  times  before  they 
landed  the  snow,  several  inches  deep,  had  to  be 
shoveled  from  the  ship's  decks. 

7.  Before  their  separate  dwellings  could  be 
built  they  were  huddled  together  in  the  one 
common  house.  In  the  cold  winter  the  atmos- 
phere must  have  become  charged  with  germs. 
All  the  elements  of  infection  were  concentrated 
for  vigorous  efficiency. 

Every  detail  considered,  it  is  no  strange 
thing  that,  when  the  flowers  appeared  on  the 
earth  and  the  time  of  the  singing  of  birds  had 
come,  only  one  half  of  the  party  were  able  to 
greet  the  fresh  glories  of  nature  in  the  long 
bright  days  that  followed  the  vernal  equinox. 
[  280  ] 


THE  GREAT  SICKNESS 

The  close  connection,  now  demonstrated,  be- 
tween cleanliness  and  health  and  between  filth 
and  disease  — ■  perhaps  we  might  add  between 
routine  and  unsuspected  impurities  in  food  and 
air — 'Was  not  as  yet  discovered.  Preventive 
medicine  was  next  to  unknown.  The  sick  per- 
son was  expected  to  "take  something."  Quacks 
and  nostrums  abounded  then  almost  as  much  as 
now  when  a  gullible  public  is  constantly  fooled 
by  advertisements,  and  more  people  die  yearly 
of  patent  medicines  than  are  killed  in  war. 

If  the  health  of  the  Pilgrims  suffered  from 
lack  of  food  there  was  at  least  one  strong  rea- 
son. The  English  had  not  yet  habitually  taken 
to  supplying  their  wants  out  of  the  sea.  When 
they  prayed,  "Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread," 
they  meant  only  grain  and  flesh.  Even  the  Bible 
word  "meat"  means  food  of  any  sort,  and  the 
English  say  "butcher's  meat"  when  they  refer 
to  steaks  and  chops.  While  the  Dutch  and 
Scotch  had  long  before  found  the  harvests  in 
the  sea,  the  English  held  aloof  and  talked  about 
"the  contemptible  trade  of  fish."  Captain  John 
Smith,  In  his  tract  on  fishing,  urged  his  coun- 
trymen to  imitate  the  Netherlanders  and  make 
England  rich.  We  read  of  French,  Dutch,  and 
Scotch  vessels  coming  to  fish  statedly  on  the 
American  coast  before  1620,  but  it  was  only 
[  281  J 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

after  the  Mayflower's  initial  vdyage  that  the 
English  went  into  the  fishing  business  on  the 
American  coast.  Only  by  degrees  did  the  suc- 
cess of  the  English  come  anywhere  near  that 
of  the  Dutch  in  drawing  wealth  out  of  the  ex- 
haustless  mines  of  the  ocean  and  turning  "  the 
abundance  of  the  seas"  to  human  sustenance. 
The  reputation  of  the  Cape  Cod  and  Gloucester 
fishermen  in  the  American  north,  the  enterprise 
of  the  whalers  of  New  Bedford  in  the  seas  of 
Asia,  and  the  creation  of  a  splendid  preparatory 
school  for  the  United  States  Navy,  as  well  as 
of  explorers  and  world-wide  navigators,  adding 
untold  wealth  and  annals  of  valor  and  fame  to 
our  Nation,  form  a  later  story. 

The  first  flower  noticed  by  the  Pilgrims  in 
their  new  home  came  to  them  as  the  harbinger 
of  spring  and  as  nature's  welcome.  In  a  sense  it 
was  a  cheering  symbol  of  their  own  life  and 
experience.  Most  probably  the  maidens  who 
first  saw  and  gathered  this  dainty  flower  —  a 
thought  of  God  — ■  recognized  in  its  beauty  and 
perfume  the  emblem  of  their  own  difficulties  and 
triumphs.  Down  below  the  leaves  of  the  dead 
past  this  exquisite  flower  pushes  its  way  up- 
ward, and  in  the  very  face  of  the  frost  it  opens 
its  petals.  In  an  atmosphere  chilly  and  discour- 
aging it  blooms  in  glory. 

[  282  ] 


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THE  GREAT  SICKNESS 

So  the  Pilgrim  movement  in  the  secrecy  of 
dark  repression,  but  rooted  in  the  ages  of  faith, 
began  its  life.  Under  the  icy  ban  of  king  and 
prelate  it  made  its  growth  to  strength  and 
beauty.  Despite  the  chilly  climate  of  disap- 
proval and  opposition  it  rose  above  all  obstacles, 
to  become  a  thing  of  glory,  perfuming  the  at- 
mosphere around  it.  Precious  is  the  symbol. 
Eternal  be  its  charm. 


CHAPTER  XXW 

THE  PILGRIM  REPUBLIC 

Whole  volumes  have  been  written  In  descrip- 
tion of  the  Pilgrim  Republic.  A  rich  library  of 
fiction  and  poetry  portrays  the  life  of  the  Pil- 
grims, both  real  and  imaginary.  It  is  our  pur- 
pose only  to  glance  at  the  growth  of  the  enter- 
prise as  these  pioneers  turned  their  ideals  into 
realities.  How  far  were  they  successful  ? 

The  Pilgrims  soon  won  self-support  and  eco- 
nomic success.  This  impressed  Europe  because 
it  was  quickly  visible.  It  encouraged  others  to 
dare  and  to  do.  It  made  enterprises  of  coloni- 
zation seem  reasonable.  Nothing  succeeds  like 
success. 

Yet,  as  seen  in  the  perspective  of  centuries, 
the  Pilgrim  triumph  was  even  greater,  spiritu- 
ally. The  Pilgrims  opened  a  new  chapter  in 
Christianity  and  gave  the  precedent  for  the  dis- 
tinctive character  of  American  religion  as  con- 
trasted with  that  of  Europe  from  which  it  dif- 
fers; but  in  what.f* 

The  best  answer  is  given  in  the  words  of 
Philip  Schaff : 

"It  is  a  free  church  in  a  free  state,  or  a  self- 
[284] 


THE  PILGRIM  REPUBLIC 

supporting  and  self-governing  Christianity  in 
independent  but  friendly  relation  to  the  civil 
government." 

So  it  happened  that  the  first  vivid  pen-picture 
of  the  Pilgrims  at  Plymouth  was  of  them  at 
worship,  and  by  a  Belgian. 

Visitors  came  early  to  the  seaside  republic 
begun  in  1620  on  the  sandy  shores  of  Massa- 
chusetts. These  have  each  left  us  their  ac- 
counts, in  languages  other  than  English,  of  a 
pleasurable  reception.  Governor  Peter  Minu it, 
himself  a  Walloon  of  Manhattan  and  New 
Belgium,  sent  his  secretary,  a  Belgian,  Isaac  de 
Rasieres,  who  was  also  a  church  officer  and 
elder,  to  bear  friendly  greetings  to  Plymouth. 
■  Since  dangers  near  at  hand  seemed  more 
dreadful  than  those  from  Dunkirk,  Bradford's 
previous  warning  to  the  prospective  Manhat- 
tan visitors  was  directed  against  the  numerous 
pirates  and  kidnapers  on  the  American  coast. 
These  man-stealers  made  no  distinction  of 
black  or  white  in  selling  slaves  in  Virginia  or 
the  West  Indies.  It  was  probably  in  accordance 
with  such  good  advice  that  the  Walloon  envoy 
made  his  journey  overland.  He  trusted  his  life 
to  the  native  savages  more  willingly  than  to 
such  "Christians"  as  then  made  the  Atlantic 
coast  a  terror,  thus  taking  less  risk. 

[285] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

To  be  captured  and  chained  for  life  to  the 
oar  on  a  Spanish  or  a  French  galley,  or  to  faint 
under  the  hot  sun  or  the  lash,  in  the  tobacco 
country,  farther  south,  what  odds?  Even  in 
1664,  at  the  British  conquest  of  New  Nether- 
land,  Plockhoy's  socialistic  Christian  colony  on 
the  Delaware  was  ruthlessly  destroyed  by  Sir 
Edwin  Carr,  and  the  white  men  sold  into  slav- 
ery in  Virginia.  Until  the  early  nineteenth  cen- 
tury both  governments  and  private  persons 
competed  furiously  with  each  other  to  catch 
and  sell  slaves  and  amass  wealth  by  trading  in 
human  flesh.  As  late  as  1772  John  Wesley  an- 
gered "practical  politicians"  by  branding  this 
traflic  as  "the  sum  of  all  villainies." 

The  correspondence  from  both  Plymouth  and 
Manhattan  was  in  Dutch;  Bradford,  Winslow, 
and  others  being  fluent  in  the  use  of  this  noble 
language  of  freedom.  Bradford  adds  that  the 
Dutch  were  "full  of  complimental  titles." 

This  was  true.  The  Dutch  republicans  be- 
lieved that  any  man,  if  worthy,  ought  to  be 
saluted  with  a  politeness  equal  to  that  used  in 
dealing  with  lords  and  ladies,  and,  especially,  if 
the  men  thus  honored  were  allies.  Their  States- 
General,  or  Congress,  was  a  body  of  "Their 
High  Mightinesses,"  and  they  demanded  and 
they  received  the  same  respect  as  did  kings. 
[  286  ] 


THE  PILGRIM  REPUBLIC 

They  were  like  us  Americans,  who  expect  our 
presidents  or  ex-presidents,  when  in  Europe 
—  Fillmore  being  the  first  —  to  be  accorded  the 
same  honors  as  are  paid  to  crowned  heads. 

The  mutual  salutations  of  March  9,  1627, 
were  both  to  their  fellow  Christians  and  to 
their  comrades  in  arms  in  the  cause  of  freedom 
against  autocracy,  even  against  that  King  of 
Spain  who,  Bradford  said,  sought  nothing  less 
than  to  "obtain  and  possess  his  pretended  mon- 
archy over  all  Christendom." 

There  was  a  reason  why  the  Dutch  addressed 
the  Pilgrims  as  brave  men  worthy  of  noblemen's 
titles,  for  they  honored  those  with  character, 
but  without  titles,  equally  with  those  possess- 
ing patents  of  nobility.  They  did  no  more  to  the 
Plymouth  people  than  they  were  accustomed  to 
do  to  and  for  themselves. 

Governor  Bradford's  answer,  in  Dutch,  was 
couched  in  an  equally  friendly  spirit.  A  trade 
began  that  continued  with  mutual  benefit  dur- 
ing several  years,  until  the  competition  of  Vir- 
ginia, amounting  almost  to  a  monopoly,  drew 
off  the  business.  Bradford's  reference  to  the 
recently  renewed  alliance  of  the  two  nations  — 
for  the  eighty  years'  war  of  independence  was 
to  continue  until  1648  —  and  the  details  of 
trade  concerning  beaver  and  other  skins,  to- 
[287  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

bacco,  fish,  corn,  and  various  commodities,  are 
interesting,  but  most  of  all  are  these  words, 
which  no  American  or  any  descendant  of  the 
Pilgrims  ought  ever  to  forget:  "Now,  forasmuch 
as  this  is  sufficiente  to  unite  us  togeather  in  love 
and  good  neighbourhood,  in  all  our  dealings, 
yet  are  many  of  us  further  obliged,  by  the  good 
and  curteous  entreaty  which  we  have  found  in 
your  countrie;  haveing  lived  ther  many  years, 
with  freedome,  and  good  contente,  as  also 
many  of  our  freinds  doe  to  this  day;  for  which 
we,  and  our  children  after  us,  are  bound  to  be 
thankfull  to  your  Nation,  and  shall  never  for- 
gett  y^  same,  but  shall  hartily  desire  your  good 
&  prosperity,  as  our  owne,  for  ever." 

A  large  part  of  the  permanent  prosperity  of 
the  Pilgrims  came  from  their  later  trade  in  the 
Connecticut  River  Valley,  which  the  Dutch, 
who  called  it  the  Fresh  River,  had  early  made 
known  to  them.  "They  [the  Dutch]  seeing 
them  [the  Pilgrims]  seated  in  a  barren  quarter, 
told  them  of  a  river  called  by  them  the  Fresh 
River,  which  they  often  commended  unto  them 
for  a  good  place,  both  for  plantation  and  trade, 
and  wished  them  to  make  use  of  it;  but  their 
hands  being  full,  they  let  them  pass."  After- 
wards Indians  induced  them  to  come  and  they 
went. 

[  288  ] 


THE  PILGRIM  REPUBLIC 

In  this  era  the  Dutch  led  the  world  In  the 
enterprises  of  trade,  commercial  progress,  and 
the  mechanism  of  finance.  Not  until  1694  were 
there  banks  in  England,  though  these  had  been 
established  in  Holland.  Hitherto  the  Pilgrims, 
being  without  coin,  had  done  all  their  "truck- 
ing "  for  furs,  fish,  etc.,  by  barter.  Now,  strange 
as  it  seemed,  America,  and  not  Europe,  furnished 
the  needed  money.  In  the  Iroquois  forest  re- 
public, shell  money  had  long  been  the  accepted 
currency.  The  settlers  in  the  Hudson  and  fur- 
traders  in  the  Mohawk  Valley  quickly  found 
out  this  medium  of  exchange  and  made  use  of 
it.  De  Rasieres  told  Bradford  about  it  and  the 
Pilgrim  Governor  at  once  took  the  hint  and 
bought  "about  fifty  pounds  worth."  At  first 
this  new  money  "stuck,"  going  off  slowly,  until 
"the  inland  people  [Indians]  knew  of  it  and 
afterwards  they  could  scarce  ever  get  enough  for 
them  for  many  years  together."  Wampum  gave 
a  wonderful  impulse  to  the  economic  history  of 
New  England. 

On  Sundays  at  Plymouth,  as  De  Rasieres 
tells  us,  at  beat  of  drum  the  men  formed  in  front 
of  Captain  Standish's  house,  each  with  his  gun 
in  hand. 

Then  they  marched  three  abreast  to  the 
meeting-house,  the  sergeant  leading  and  the 
[289] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

eererwachtj  or  honor  guard,  following.  Next 
came  the  three  chief  men,  governor,  preacher, 
and  commandant.  Like  all  English  military 
officers,  in  times  old  or  new,  and  even  to  this 
day  —  as  we  see  In  London  on  the  streets  and 
even  on  the  bronze  statue  of  "Chinese"  Gor- 
don in  Trafalgar  Square  and  In  Canada  —  their 
jaunty  captain  carried  in  his  hand  or  under  his 
arm  a  little  cane  or  "  swagger  stick."  Each  adult 
male,  ever  vigilant,  took  his  gun  Inside  the 
meeting-house,  thus  Initiating  also  the  custom 
of  sitting  at  the  end  of  the  pew,  so  as  to  be 
ready  for  an  attack,  whether  by  white  or  red 
men. 

My  friend  George  H.  Boughton,  the  artist, 
from  the  Walloon's  description,  though  with 
artistic  license,  has  made  a  spirited  picture  of 
this  processional  over  the  wintry  white  ground 
to  divine  worship. 

We  may  now  look  at  another  sort  of  visitors 
and  denizens  and  see  how  they  were  treated 
In  the  Pilgrim  Republic. 

While  those  of  the  Leyden  company  were 
people  of  good  stock  and  handsomely  Illus- 
trated the  old  saw,  "blood  will  tell,"  there 
were  In  the  second  generation  at  Plymouth 
many  strangers,  with  some  disorderly  charac- 
ters and  degenerates  from  among  those  who 
[  290  ] 


THE  PILGRIM  REPUBLIC 

had  been  of  the  lot  "shuffled  in"  from  London: 
These  persons  had  Httle  of  the  tolerant  spirit 
of  the  original  company,  who  were  the  best  of 
Catholics  in  the  true  sense  of  that  noble  word. 
In  fact,  the  real  Pilgrims  were  "sufficiently 
liberal  to  tolerate  illiberality."  With  such  odd 
characters  as  the  young  man,  Roger  Williams, 
of  1630  —  by  no  means  the  same  in  spirit  as 
the  sedate  Governor  of  Rhode  Island  in  1660 
— •  and  with  such  clerical  scamps  as  Lyford  and 
the  lunatic  Rogers,  they  were  patient,  forbear- 
ing, and  friendly.  Even  when  convicted  of  mis- 
behavior the  culprits  from  among  this  riffraff 
of  cranks  and  obnoxious  folk  were  only  mildly 
punished.  The  original  founders  of  the  colony 
were  opposed  to  the  enactment  of  too  severe 
laws,  even  against  the  unruly  elements  and 
wild  fanatics,  who,  having  come  in  from  abroad, 
had  also  lowered  the  tone  of  the  community. 
The  punishments,  which  were  only  occasional, 
were  rather  for  offenses  against  decency  than 
for  religious  opinions. 

In  studying  a  man's  life  we  must  judge  him, 
not  according  to  tradition  or  common  report, 
or  because  of  his  reputation,  or  the  acts  of  a 
particular  day  or  year,  but  in  the  light  of  the 
ruling  ideas  and  public  opinion  of  his  own  age, 
and  also  of  his  time  of  life  as  well  as  of  his 
[  291  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

whole  career.  We  must  know  the  circumstances 
which  helped  to  make  him  either  great  and 
noble  or  petty  and  contemptible. 

The  young  Roger  Williams  whom  the  Pil- 
grims knew  was  a  mixture  of  most  disagree- 
able traits  and  elements,  blended  with  rare 
and  noble  qualities.  He  was,  In  fact,  a  can- 
tankerous saint,  who  seemed  to  have  a  passion 
for  Insulting  the  Intelligence  and  trying  the  pa- 
tience of  his  friends.  Years  afterwards,  with  a 
grand  and  ripened  character,  the  mellow  Chris- 
tian who  ruled  Rhode  Island  won  the  hearts  of 
the  red  men  and  became  the  prophet  of  re- 
ligious freedom,  to  be  honored  to  the  end  of 
time.  The  Immortal  fame  of  this  figure  In  our 
colonial  history  rests  not  on  his  early  oddities, 
but  on  his  steadfast  character  In  mature  life, 
when  he  had  forsaken  most  of  the  follies  of  his 
youth  and  was  pressing  on  to  Ideal  manhood. 
Rhode  Island  has  done  well  to  crown  her  cap- 
Itol  dome  with  a  golden  statue.  It  Is  not  of 
Roger  Williams,  but  of  the  ideally  perfect  man, 
who  has  reached  "the  measure  of  the  stature 
of  the  fullness  of  Christ." 

Of  sad  necessity  was  the  execution  of  the 

murderer  Billington,  who  was  "one  of  life's 

fools,  whom   only  death  would  treat  as  'the 

equal  of  other  men."  It  was  "In  the  grave's 

[  292  ] 


THE  PILGRIM  REPUBLIC 

democracy"  that  he  won  his  highest  honors. 
He  was  that  sort  of  a  hero  which  dime  novel- 
ists and  cheap  picture  shows  Hke  to  get  hold 
of,  thus  stimulating  to  crime  the  weak  and  the 
degenerate.  Bradford's  record,  exact,  save  the 
spelling,  as  that  of  the  most  careful  court 
stenographers  of  to-day,  reveals  the  story  of 
this  first  American  gunman.  "He  way-laid  a 
young  man,  one  John  New  Comin  (about  a 
former  quarell)  and  shote  him  with  a  gune, 
whereof  he  dyed." 

The  execution  of  Billington  did  not  take 
place  until  "They  used  all  due  means  about 
his  trial  and  took  the  advice  of  Mr.  Winthrop 
and  other  [of]  the  ablest  gentlemen  in  the  Bay 
of  the  Massachusetts.  .  .  .  [Billington]  and  some 
of  his  had  often  been  punished  for  miscarriage 
before."  Hubbard  tells  us  that  "the  murderer 
expected  that,  either  for  want  of  power  to  ex- 
ecute for  capital  offenses,  or  for  want  of  people 
to  increase  the  plantation,  he  should  have  his 
life  spared;  but  justice  otherwise  determined 
and  rewarded  him,  the  first  murderer  of  his 
neighbor  there  with  the  deserved  punishment 
of  death,  for  a  warning  to  others."  In  a  word, 
the  murderer  was  a  brutal  coward  as  well  as  a 
hardened  transgressor. 

The    Pilgrim    Republic    adopted    many    a 

[  293  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

"laudable  custom  of  Holland,"  as  our  National 
Government  did  later.  One  was  the  early  pro- 
vision made  for  maimed  or  crippled  soldiers. 
The  first  law  in  favor  of  pensioning  ex-soldiers 
was  passed  at  Plymouth  in  1636.  Any  "re- 
turned" or  maimed  soldier  was  maintained  all 
the  rest  of  his  life  at  the  public  expense.  Eight 
years  later  Virginia  also  passed  a  similar  law. 

While  the  survivals  from  our  primeval  brute 
nature  persist  in  human  beings,  force  is  neces- 
sary to  secure  the  enforcement  of  law.  Every 
good  government  must  have  at  its  call  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  organized  power  to  carry  out 
its  mandates.  The  fact  that  a  small  but  well- 
disciplined  army  existed  at  Plymouth  was  the 
means  of  restraining  wicked  men,  red  and 
white,  all  along  the  coast.  This  made  it  easier 
and  safer  for  the  decent  people  in  the  ten  or  a 
dozen  settlements  already  attempted  in  New 
England,  and  for  the  Puritans  who  came  later. 
Among  the  scoundrels  in  the  "bad  lot"  that 
kept  augmenting  was  one  Thomas  Morton, 
who  made  himself  a  true  "lord  of  misrule," 
as  Bradford  calls  him.  He  "maintained  (as  it 
were)  a  school  of  atheism."  Certainly  his  de- 
liberate purpose  seemed  to  be  to  bring  back 
paganism  in  its  most  licentious  form.  He  had 
heard   "the  call   of   the  wild"   and  joyfully 

[  294  ] 


THE  PILGRIM  REPUBLIC 

obeyed  It  even  to  beastliness.  His  headquarters 
were  at  Mount  Wollaston,  which  he  named 
"Merry  Mount."  With  Indian  squaws  and  de- 
generate white  men  he  made  this  place  a  hell 
on  earth.  Among  the  settlements  where  lived 
respectable  people  and  also  weak-minded  folk, 
there  was  danger  of  moral  infection.  To  his 
retreat  this  cave-man  attracted  the  worst  ele- 
ments in  savage  and  European  life  —  even 
degenerate  savages  and  "heathenish  Chris- 
tians." 

Here  then  at  its  very  beginning  was  a  menace 
to  the  civilization  of  New  England  imperiling  all 
decent  social  life.  Of  the  real  danger  of  an  epi- 
demic of  immorality,  there  was  already  a  fright- 
ful example  in  Canada.  The  French  homes 
suffered  terribly  from  a  moral  plague.  Hundreds 
of  coureurs  de  bois,  or  wood-rangers,  deserted 
their  households,  wives,  children,  and  the  de- 
cencies of  life  to  dwell  in  the  forests.  The  re- 
straints of  religion,  of  propriety,  and  of  industry 
were  thrown  off,  and  these  men  reverted  to 
savagery.  Taking  squaws  for  companions  and 
living  among  the  Indians,  they  became,  to  all 
intents  and  purposes,  like  them.  This  "call  of 
the  wild"  threatened  to  overturn  New  France. 
Ultimately,  this,  more  than  any  other  single 
cause,  led  to  its  fall. 

[  295  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

Anglo-Saxon  pluck  was  against  all  this  sort 
of  tiling,  and  among  the  Pilgrims  a  determi- 
nation to  resist  it  was  formed.  Just  here  the 
value  of  a  disciplined  military  force  was  made 
evident  and  availed  of  by  the  community. 

"So  sundry  of  the  chief  of  the  straggling 
plantations  meeting  together  agreed  by  mu- 
tual consent  to  solicit  those  of  Plymouth  (who 
were  then  of  more  strength  than  them  all)  to 
join  with  them  to  prevent  the  further  growth 
of  this  mischief  and  suppress  A/[orton  and  his 
consorts  before  they  grew  to  further  head  and 
strength." 

Several  friendly  letters  and  warnings,  which 
were  sent  first  to  Morton,  met  only  with  im- 
pudent defiance.  "So  there  was  no  way  but 
to  take  him  by  force."  Standish  and  his  men 
were  ordered  to  march  on  Morton's  fortified 
house. 

To  defend  himself  and  his  harem  the  liber- 
tine, first  of  all,  loaded  himself  and  his  garrison 
with  strong  liquor.  Then  he  tried  to  make  a 
machine  gun  of  his  carbine  by  ramming  in  a 
variety  of  ammunition  until  the  barrel  was 
about  half  full.  Then  he  set  "diverse  dishes  of 
powder  and  bullets  ready  on  the  table"  for 
quick  firing.  When  summoned  to  surrender  and 
the  leader  having  answered  in  defiance,  the 

[296] 


THE  PILGRIM  REPUBLIC 

drunken  crew  came  out  to  shoot.  Before  It  had 
percolated  into  Morton's  boozy  brain  what  was 
the  matter,  the  alert  Standish  had  knocked  his 
blunderbuss  aside  and  made  the  big  lout  his 
prisoner. 

In  this  battle  nobody  was  hurt.  The  only 
blood  shed  was  in  the  form  of  a  few  drops  from 
one  stupid  fellow's  face.  He  was  so  drunk  that 
he  ran  his  own  nose  upon  the  point  of  a  sword 
held  by  another  man  as  he  was  entering  the 
house.  "Had  they  not  been  over-armed  with 
drink,  more  hurt  might  have  been  done."  So 
wrote  the  witty  Bradford,  who,  with  his  keen 
sense  also  of  humor,  could  always  see  the  comic 
side  of  such  incidents.  No  doubt  he  had  a 
hearty  laugh  when  Standish  delivered  his  of- 
ficial report  of  what  a  fool  had  made  so  funny. 
For  a  joke  it  would  be  hard,  even  in  comic 
opera,  to  beat  this  actual  performance,  which 
Bradford  staged  for  posterity.  Motley,  with 
his  'prentice  hand,  tried  to  make  of  this  episode 
a  novel,  upon  which,  however,  as  his  biographer, 
Dr.  O.  W.  Holmes,  says,  there  fell  a  "merciful 
oblivion." 

The  Puritan  Sabbath,  when  established  as  a 
national  English  custom,  proved  to  be  one  of 
the  nation's  strongest  moral  bulwarks  and  one 
of  its  greatest  economic  blessings,  in  building 

I  297  1 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

a  sure  foundation  of  material  prosperity;  for 
nothing  so  conserved  the  physical  energies  and 
the  virile  temper  of  this  great  people.  After 
nearly  tliree  centuries  of  trial  it  is  seen  to  be 
perhaps  the  greatest  possible  preserver  of  na- 
tional vigor.  It  was  the  Puritan  Sabbath  that 
from  the  stored-up  vigor  of  generations  formed 
in  19 14  a  large  element  of  success  in  enabling 
Kitchener's  "contemptible  little  army" — ■  so 
stigmatized  by  the  Huns  —  to  withstand  the 
onrush  of  the  Germans.  From  one  point  of  view 
we  may  say  that  the  Sabbath-keeping  nations 
turned  the  scale  In,  saving  civilization. 

In  its  freshness  the  Puritan  Sabbath  was 
something  notably,  or  at  least  perceptibly, 
different  from  either  the  later  Puritanical  dilu- 
tion or  the  modern  caricature  of  It.  In  many 
ways  the  Puritan  movement  In  Its  origin  was  a 
turning  away  from  mediaeval  degeneration  to 
primitive  purity  and  the  freshness  of  antiquity. 
With  the  Puritans,  who  entered  so  largely  into 
the  Old  Testament  Inheritances,  following  the 
model  there  set  forth,  the  Sabbath,  or  Rest 
Day,  began  on  Saturday  at  the  setting  of  the 
sun  and  ended  at  sundown  on  Sunday  evening. 
Hence  the  Puritans  and  Pilgrims  "  kept  Satur- 
day night."  Unmatched  in  descriptive  poetry 
is  the  picture  of  the  home  as  made  clean,  beau- 
[298] 


THE  PILGRIM  REPUBLIC 

tiful,  and  radiant  with  the  spirit  of  the  Puri- 
tan, such  as  "The  Cotter's  Saturday  Night" 
of  Robert  Burns,  who  declared  that  "from 
scenes  hke  these,  old  Scotia's  grandeur  springs." 
This  lover  of  the  good  things  of  life,  this  "il- 
legitimate child  of  Calvinism,"  knew  and  bore 
witness  to  the  truth.  It  is  the  Scottish  Puritan 
Sabbath  tliat  explains  much  of  the  inexhaust- 
ible vigor  of  the  Scottish  people,  unwasted 
along  the  centuries  and  ever  manifested  afresh 
throughout  the  earth  and  in  every  line  of  hu- 
man endeavor  when  the  call  to  duty  sounds 
forth.  In  Puritan  homes  and  cities  Sunday 
night  was  a  time  of  mental  relaxation  and  clean 
amusement  so  that  the  "long"  and  "monot- 
onous" and  "dismal"  Sunday,  upon  which 
modern  caricaturists  of  the  Puritan  and  Pil- 
grim, with  their  thick-laid  tints  of  soot  and 
tar,  descant,  is  largely  an  imaginary  one.  Upon 
this  institution  as  a  target  they  spend  their 
shafts  of  wit  in  vain,  for  all  who  love  the  work- 
ing-man and  his  beast  strive  to  maintain  the 
divine  ordinance,  while  those  who  encourage 
the  profiteer  and  the  oppressor  of  the  poor  are 
apt  to  denounce  the  Lord's  Day  as  a  gloomy 
relic  of  the  worthless  past. 

There  was   nothing  either  of   the  "goody- 
goody"  spirit  or  modern  "revival"  temper  or 

[  299  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS  ' 

method,  with  the  Pilgrims,  nor  any  of  the  vul- 
gar machinery,  stage  carpentry,  and  noise- 
making  of  the  sawdust  trail,  nor  were  there 
among  them  the  manners  of  the  baseball  dia- 
mond or  grandstand.  Nor  was  their  stern  re- 
solve "  like  the  crackling  of  thorns  under  a  pot." 
No  sputter,  jet,  or  rocket  fire  with  them,  nor 
any  sequence  of  quickly  cold  ashes  or  burnt 
stick !  The  flame  in  their  souls  was  rather  as  the 
glow  of  anthracite.  As  with  earth's  ages,  so 
with  their  inheritance  of  the  Christian  cen- 
turies — •  the  sunbeams  of  aeons  of  truth  had 
changed  their  form,  but  not  their  potency.  Not 
for  them  novelty  and  delusion,  but  the  rock  of 
eternal  truth  as  God  gave  them  to  see  the 
truth! 


CHAPTER  XXV 
PROSPERITY  AND  EXPANSION 

What  the  race  of  man  in  its  evolution  —  or  its 
divinely  guided  education  —  would  be  without 
the  aid  of  our  friends  and  servants,  the  dumb 
brutes,  gives  food  for  thought.  In  the  air,  the 
waters,  and  on  land  these  creatures  preserve 
the  balance  of  nature,  so  that  no  one  of  their 
species  dominates  the  earth.  As  helpers,  guard- 
ians, burden-bearers,  fellow  workers,  producers 
of  manifold  things  of  necessity  and  ornament, 
and  as  comrades  of  man  in  the  subduing  and 
replenishing  of  the  earth  and  helping  to  gain 
dominion  over  all  elements  and  forces,  the 
birds,  beasts,  and  fishes  are  the  allies  of  man. 
It  is  the  domestic  animals,  however,  that  are 
very  near  to  him,  and  even  at  times  as  those  of 
his  own  household. 

Defoe  might  have  been  prompted  to  write 
his  story  of  Robinson  Crusoe,  less  from  Alex- 
ander Selkirk,  and  possibly  also  the  author  of 
"The  Swiss  Family  Robinson"  from  other 
hints  than  from  the  Mayflower  company,  vir- 
tually marooned  on  the  sandy  and  almost  bar- 
ren shores  of  Massachusetts.  It  is  a  curious 

[  301  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

fact  that  the  family  name  of  him  "at  whose 
prompting  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  went  forth  to 
settle  New  England" — 'as  the  Leyden  tablet 
declares — 'has  been  borrowed  for  the  heroes 
of  both  of  these  popular  books  for  boys  which 
have  gone  through  three  hundred  editions. 

Though  there  were  dogs,  pigs,  and  chickens 
in  Plymouth  before  1624,  there  were  no  cattle 
until  that  date.  Longfellow  puts  Priscilla  Mul- 
lens, the  bride  of  John  Alden,  on  a  white  heifer 
for  a  bridal  tour  before  the  cow's  daughter  had 
arrived.  In  1627  there  were  twelve  of  these 
food-giving  animals  —  one  for  each  thirteen 
persons. 

It  is  not  our  purpose,  even  if  space  permitted, 
to  tell  in  detail  about  the  finances  of  the  Ply- 
mouth Colony.  This  has  been  done  in  a  manner 
so  comxplete,  and  so  far  surpassing  all  former 
efforts,  that  we  refer  the  reader  to  the  latest 
book  on  this  subject.^  By  1627  the  Pilgrims  had 
won  economic  independence,  paid  their  debts, 
owned  the  land  they  lived  on,  and  were  free 
from  all  bondage  to  the  men  or  companies  that 
had  financed  their  venture.  Many  colonists  had 
preceded  the  Pilgrims  in  attempts  at  settlement 
in  the  New  World.  These,  for  the  most  part, 

^  The  Pilgrims  and  Their  History,  By  Roland  G.  Usher. 
1918. 

[   302  ] 


PROSPERITY  AND  EXPANSION 

gave  precedents  of  failure.  The  Pilgrims  fur- 
nished the  precedent  of  success. 

Further  events  that  but  slightly  affected 
either  the  young  people  or  the  American  de- 
velopment were  union,  in  1643,  with  the  other 
colonies  in  the  New  England  Confederation 
and  the  absorption  of  the  Plymouth  or  "Old" 
Colony  with  others  in  the  one  large  royal  prov- 
ince. The  former,  never  very  satisfactory  in  its 
work,  lasted  until  1686,  when  both  the  king  and 
his  servant.  Sir  Edmund  Andros,  were  defied, 
because  they  were  law  and  covenant  breakers. 

In  1692  the  story  of  New  Plymouth,  which 
had  seventeen  towns  and  thirteen  thousand 
inhabitants,  ended ;  for  in  that  year  it  became 
an  integral  part  of  the  British  Province  of 
Massachusetts.  This  included  what  is  now  Can- 
ada — ■  which  our  fathers,  during  1774  ^^^  I775> 
eagerly  hoped  would  cast  in  her  lot  with  the 
thirteen  colonies.  In  this  they  were  sadly  dis- 
appointed, and  when  the  flag  of  the  United 
Colonies  was  raised  at  Cambridge,  January  i, 
1776,  it  had  not  fourteen  stripes  thereon,  but 
only  thirteen.  For  as  of  old  in  the  flag  of 
the  Federal  Republic,  in  which  the  Pilgrims 
had  nourished  their  strength,  each  stripe,  until 
July  4,  1776,  represented  a  colony,  and  after 
that  a  State  in  the  Union  which  had  become  the 

[  303  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

United  States  of  America.  Federal  government 
is  not  well  understood  even  to-day  as  yet  by  the 
British  people  at  home,  and  many  a  Briton  is 
puzzled  at  our  system  of  government,  though 
Australians  and  Canadians  understand  it  more 
easily. 

To  those  living  In  the  times  of  the  Pilgrims 
their  economic  success  in  pounds,  shillings,  and 
pence.  In  land,  food,  cattle,  and  fish,  In  ability 
to  hold  their  own,  and  In  power  to  Increase 
and  offer  attractions  of  worldly  success  to  set- 
tlers, were  what  most  powerfully  Impressed  the 
world.  To  the  seventeenth-century  European 
it  was  something  before  his  eyes.  To  us.  It  Is 
a  priceless  inheritance.  Their  moral  stamina, 
their  unquailing  faith,  their  sublime  courage, 
their  demonstration  of  the  soundness  of  the 
American  idea  of  self-government,  are  what 
Impress  and  Inspire  us.  The  secret  of  the  Pilgrim 
power  and  glory  lies  In  the  homes  they  made 
and  the  families  they  reared. 

The  Pilgrims  brought  up  their  own  children 
in  the  best  of  all  schools  — •  a  Christian  home  — ■ 
and  under  the  eyes  of  parents.  With  these  fa- 
thers and  mothers  there  was  no  deputy  or  sub- 
stitute. Nor  has  any  university  yet  been  found 
superior  to  maternal  love.  The  most  decisive, 
formative,  and  Important  period  In  human  life 

[  304  ] 


PROSPERITY  AND  EXPANSION 

is  comprised  within  its  first  two  years.  It  is  this 
era  of  infancy  that  differentiates  man  from  the 
brute.  Within  those  twenty-four  months  the 
infant  acquires  more,  relatively,  than  during 
any  other  two  years  of  its  life.  No  horse  or 
dog  born  on  earth  has  ever  learned  more  or 
exceeded  in  potency  of  intellect  the  two-years 
child.  So  say  the  psychologists,  and  they  speak 
with  science. 

No  sad  sight,  such  as  that  possible  in  an 
alleged  higher  civilization,  and  which  is  often 
seen,  of  the  banishment  of  little  boys  and  girls 
from  home  by  parents,  too  indolent  or  too  self- 
ish to  rear  their  own  children,  into  distant 
schools,  to  be  cared  for  by  strangers,  was  then 
in  practice,  even  if  the  Separatists  had  been 
rich  enough  to  indulge  in  this  luxury.  Nor  had 
the  extreme  theories  of  Plato,  though  old  and 
well  known  to  the  Pilgrim  scholars,  as  well  as  to 
modern  dreamers,  any  power  over  the  minds  of 
these  people,  who  lived  in  brotherhood  and  put 
many  good  communal  ideas  into  practice,  while 
avoiding  communism. 

How  early  the  settlers  of  New  England  were 
called  "Yankees,"  or  how  the  term  originated, 
no  one  knows  with  certainty,  for  no  one  has  yet 
proved  his  pet  derivation  to  the  entire  satisfac- 
tion of  all.  My  own  idea  is  that  "Yankees"  is 

[  30s  1 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

the  form  which  a  Dutch  word  took,  after  being 
spoken  by  the  Indians  of  New  York,  who  passed 
it  on  to  tlie  white  men  "down  east."  In  Holland 
it  Is  an  old  term,  still  current,  when  men  are 
ready  to  quarrel.  Hans  is  apt  to  call  Pete  a 
"cheese  head";  or.  In  his  vernacular,  Jan  Kaas, 
which,  as  a  Dutchman  pronounces  It,  Is  "Yan- 
kase,"  sounding  very  much  like  "Yankees." 
What  looks  like  the  singular  of  a  noun  —  that 
is,  "Yankee"  — ■  and  later  in  time  than  the  ap- 
parently plural  or  noun  form,  was  at  first  em- 
ployed only  as  an  adjective.  Yet,  as  used  by  the 
Indians  and  adopted  by  the  white  men,  It  did 
not  connote  disdain  or  reproach;  but  rather,  in 
time,  from  being  neutrally  descriptive  It  came 
to  mean  whatever  was  notable  or  excellent;  just 
as  the  phrase,  "the  Bostons,"  was  later  among 
the  Iroquois  descriptive  of  those  who  had  taken 
up  arms  against  King  George  III.  In  our  day 
the  "Yanks"  in  Europe  and  the  spread  and 
prevalence  of  national  ideas  and  sentiments 
over  those  born  only  of  localities  and  States 
have  made  our  hundred  million  people  accept 
gleefully  the  name  of  "this  glorious  Yankee 
nation."  "The  Yanks  are  coming"  was,  in 
1917,  a  song  that  thrilled  and  helped  to  save 
Europe. 

The  initial  Pilgrim  success  and,  with  our  later 

1 306] 


PROSPERITY  AND  EXPANSION 

generations,  the  Pilgrim  glory,  made  England 
only  too  ready  to  recognize  and  to  welcome 
back  her  once  outcast  children.  This  success 
heartened  not  only  the  Free  Churchmen,  but 
the  whole  body  of  the  people  of  the  British 
Isles.  None  saw  so  clearly  the  meaning  of  the 
struggle  of  '6 1  as  the  Lancashire  operatives.  In 
Edinburgh,  first,  and  then  in  Manchester,  stands 
the  statue  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  as  well  as,  in 
London,  that  of  Washington.  It  was  our  Eng- 
lish friends,  who,  even  before  the  Americans, 
saw  in  Lincoln's  Gettysburg  Address  the  ele- 
ments of  immortality.  Happily  for  the  coming 
union  of  all  the  English-speaking  peoples,  the 
revision  of  our  schoolbooks  by  scholars  will  en- 
able our  American  people  to  see  that  the  cause 
for  which  the  Whigs  in  Parliament,  from  1770 
to  1836,  labored,  was  the  same  as  that  for  which 
Washington  and  the  Continentals  fought.  The 
victory  of  1783  was  followed  by  bloodless  tri- 
umph in  1830. 

With  the  rise  of  the  High  Church  party  and 
the  dominance  of  Anglicanism  in  religion  as  its 
sequel,  under  the  Tudor  and  Stuart  dynasties, 
began  the  England  of  two  differing  ideals,  be- 
tween which  most  thinking  Americans  sharply 
discriminate.  They  exist  and  are  potent  in  the 
mind  of  every  thoughtful  American  who  is  criti- 

[  307  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

cally  familiar  with  British  history.  Of  his  men- 
tal images  of  the  two  Englands,  one  is  that  rep- 
resented in  the  union  of  Church  and  State,  of 
politics  and  religion,  with  its  citadel  in  the 
Established  Church,  which  is  looked  upon,  by 
those  aspiring  to  be  fashionable,  as  a  social 
clearing-house.  This  is  the  England  of  the 
Stuart  kings,  of  Laud,  of  old  Toryism  and  the 
House  of  Lords,  of  rotten  boroughs,  of  the 
German  King  George,  of  privilege,  of  titles  of 
nobility,  of  hereditary  parasitism,  of  aristoc- 
racy and  of  snobbery. 

The  other  England  is  that  of  the  Puritans  and 
the  Pilgrims,  of  Cromwell  and  the  Common- 
wealth, of  the  Free  Churches,  of  Pitt  and  Burke, 
of  Wilkes  and  Barre,  of  Gladstone  and  Lloyd 
George.  The  England  of  law  that  is  older  than 
kings  —  compacted  of  the  forces  that  produced 
the  Whigs,  who,  from  1763  to  1830  were  fight- 
ing the  same  battle  and  were  in  the  ranks 
of  freedom  with  Washington,  Hamilton,  and 
Jefferson,  and  of  the  spirit  of  democracy,  mani- 
fested, for  example,  by  John  Bright  and  the 
Lancashire  operatives,  who  saw  into  the  mean- 
ing of  the  American  struggle  of  '61  —  that  is 
the  England  admired  by  the  overwhelming  ma- 
jority of  Americans.  There  was  no  such  England 
when  the  Pilgrims  were  driven  out  to  be  fugi- 
[  308  ] 


PROSPERITY  AND  EXPANSION 

tives  and  exiles  in  the  Dutch  Republic.  The 
England  of  privilege,  aristocracy  and  peerages, 
of  traditional  and  law-enforced  religion,  with 
the  junkerism  and  snobbery  directly  bred  there- 
from, and  of  mediaeval  custom  and  ceremonial 
emptied  of  meaning,  is  the  England  admired  by 
a  small  American  minority,  and  those  not  of  the 
most  desirable  class.  With  either  view  neither 
religious  opinion  nor  practical  godliness  has  any 
necessary  connection. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

COSMOPOLITAN  ELEMENTS  IN  THE 
PILGRIM  COMPANY 

Those  who,  on  the  one  hand,  are  familiar  with 
the  original  records  and  autographs  of  the  Sep- 
aratists in  Leyden,  and  those  who,  on  the  other, 
get  their  information  from  and  listen  only  to 
the  after-dinner  speeches  and  the  rhetorical 
transfiguration  of  the  Pilgrims,  have  very  differ- 
ent ideas  and  even  conflicting  emotions. 

To  the  first  set,  who  are  students,  the  impres- 
sion is  that  of  a  very  cosmopolitan  company. 
To  those  who  are  auditors  only,  the  notion  is 
born  and  foolishly  persists  that  the  people  who 
came  over  in  the  Pilgrim  ships  were  of  unmixed 
English  origin.  This  nourishes  also  the  fancy 
that  the  United  States  is  a  New  England,  and 
the  American  people  a  sort  of  annex  to  Great 
Britain,  or  one  of  her  daughter  nations,  like 
those  of  Canada,  Australia,  or  New  Zealand. 
In  fact,  our  popular  historiography,  having 
been  produced  in  larger  measure  in  one  section 
only  of  the  country,  has  been  so  far  Anglicized 
that  this  idea,  so  opposed  to  facts  and  records, 
is  further  expanded  to  the  detriment  of  truth 

[  310  ] 


COSMOPOLITAN  ELEMENTS 

and  to  vast  confusion  In  both  Europe  and  the 
United  States. 

Those  who  Imagine  that  the  settlers  of  Ply- 
mouth were  all  of  English  stock  and  ideas,  or 
exclusively  of  one  religious  sect,  or  that  they  all 
held  exactly  the  same  opinions  on  all  subjects, 
or  on  any  one  of  them,  are  seriously  mistaken. 
Even  when  Robinson's  company  were  In  Hol- 
land there  was  much  variety  in  blood,  lan- 
guage, opinion,  and  Ideas.  In  reality  the  Pilgrim 
mothers  and  fathers  were,  altogether,  from  no 
fewer  than  seven  nations.  This  is  the  testimony 
of  the  records  in  Holland,  as  Kist,  Swalue, 
de  Hoop  Schaeffer,  and  others  have  published 
them,  and  as  we  have  seen  and  read  them. 
At  least  three  languages,  English,  Dutch,  and 
French,  were  spoken  among  the  people  of  the 
Leyden  congregation. 

Probably  all  the  children  born  between  1609 
and  1 62 1  could  talk  Dutch  and  some  of  them 
French;  while  probably  a  dozen  or  more  could 
also  read  and  write  the  two  languages  of  the 
Netherlands.  In  a  word,  from  the  time  when 
both  the  Southern  and  the  Northern  Separa- 
tists left  England,  they  took  into  their  com- 
pany enough  people  of  Continental  and  of  non- 
English  British  stock  to  form  a  true  type  of  our 
American  Republic,  which  cannot  accurately 

[311] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

be  called  a  New  England,  but  rather  a  new 
Europe. 

Those  also  who  imagine  that  either  Robin- 
son's company  or  the  Plymouth  settlers  were 
all  of  one  way  of  thinking,  or  were  of  one  sect  or 
creed  — •  that  is,  like  the  New  England  Congre- 
gationalists  of  the  eighteenth  and  early  nine- 
teenth centuries,  with  their  rigid  rules  and 
creeds  —  are  "off"  in  their  notions.  In  the 
latter  case  those  who  were  to  join  the  church 
were  first  "propounded"  to  the  congregation, 
voted  on,  and  then  received  into  fellowship.  But 
they  must  first  assent  by  voice  or  subscribe 
with  pen  and  ink  to  a  creed,  which  was  com- 
posed often  of  many  articles  and  was  a  minia- 
ture system  of  theology.  All  this  was  very  dif- 
ferent from  the  church  life  of  their  predecessors 
in  Holland. 

Roughly  speaking,  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  had 
no  formal  creed;  that  is,  no  rigid  dogmatic 
statement  of  opinion  or  theory  of  religion  to 
which  they  must  first  subscribe  and  then  be 
held  accountable.  They  were  Christians,  and 
cared  little  for  any  other  name.  In  place  of  this 
credal  form,  which  in  other  churches  was  laid 
on  the  consciences  of  those  either  baptized  in 
infancy  (christened)  or  admitted  in  mature 
years,  the  Separatists  made  a  covenant  which 

[  312  ] 


COSMOPOLITAN  ELEMENTS 

was  a  sufficient  bond  to  hold  them  In  vital 
union.  In  fact,  they  detested  and  left  the 
Church  of  England,  chiefly  because  they  were 
required  to  subscribe  to  rigid  forms  of  creed 
and  to  a  routine  of  ritual  and  ceremony.  By 
them  this  Anglican  Establishment  was  usually 
spoken  of  as  "Egypt." 

Parents  bringing  their  children  for  baptism 
were  not  obliged  to  assent  to  the  formulae  of  the 
Roman,  Anglican,  or  Dutch  churches,  though 
publicly  covenanting  to  have  them  educated  in 
Christian  doctrine,  according  to  the  Augustin- 
ian  or  Calvlnlstic  theories. 

In  the  membership  of  Robinson's  church,  in 
Amsterdam,  at  Leyden,  and  in  the  congrega- 
tion at  Plymouth,  were  at  least  seven  na- 
tions represented,  and  members  who  had  been 
brought  up  in  the  Welsh,  Anglican,  Scottish, 
Walloon,  French,  and  Dutch  churches.  In  fact, 
Robinson  received  into  fellowship,  or  invited 
to  the  communion  table,  members  of  all  these 
churches.  Theirs  was  a  true  Catholic,  or  Union 
church.  Robinson  did  not  like  any  of  the  cur- 
rent names,  whether  "Brownlst,"  "Separa- 
tist," "Anabaptist,"  or  "Independent."  We  do 
not  know  that  he  would  have  cared  even  for  the 
name  "  Congregatlonalist."  The  term  "  Pilgrim  " 
is  one  only  of  late  growth  and  local  usage,  based 

[  313  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

entirely  upon  a  sentence  in  Bradford's  History 
—  which  was  not  written  until  some  years  after 
the  landing  of  the  Mayflower.  The  word,  as  now 
applied,  was  unknown,  probably,  until  coined 
in  America,  Its  first  use  was  in  1798,  and  that 
of  "Pilgrim  Fathers"  in  1799. 

John  Bastwick,  one  of  his  members  and  a  stu- 
dent at  Leyden,  quoted  Robinson  as  saying  that 
he  would  never  have  separated  from  the  Church 
of  England  if  he  could  have  enjoyed  the  liberty 
of  his  ministry  there  and  not  have  been  obliged 
to  follow  its  ceremonies  and  to  do  that  against 
which  his  conscience  revolted  as  an  insult  to 
his  Master —  subscribe  to  a  hard-and-fast  creed 
and  to  the  compulsory  use  of  a  ritual. 

In  the  Pilgrim  narrative  the  famous  historical 
figures  appear  not  all  at  once,  but  from  time 
to  time.  Robert  Browne  and  the  author  of  the 
Martin  Marp relate  tracts  were  pioneers;  but 
Penry,  as  being  the  first  Pilgrim  Father,  led  the 
procession  that  still  moves  toward  the  City  of 
God. 

Miles  Standlsh,  so  far  as  known,  was  not  a 
member  of  the  Scrooby,  the  Leyden,  or  the 
Plymouth  church.  Bradford  makes  no  men- 
tion of  him  until  the  Mayflower  anchored  at 
Cape  Cod.  Then  he  stands  forth  as  the  leader 
of  the  volunteers  who  were  ready  to  dare  and 

[314] 


COSMOPOLITAN  ELEMENTS 

do,  facing  the  wild  beast  or  the  savage  in  ex- 
ploration of  the  unknown  wilderness. 

Nor  was  John  Alden,  the  cooper,  met  with 
until  the  Speedwell  reached  Southampton. 
Whether  the  first-named,  the  soldier,  held  to 
the  mediaeval  or  to  the  Reformed  faith,  and 
whether  the  second,  the  cooper,  first  opened 
his  eyes  in  Ireland  or  in  England,  as  claimed, 
are  still  unsolved  questions.  Both  were  typi- 
cal men  of  high  honor,  conscience,  vision,  and 
enthusiasm,  just  the  men  to  found  a  state. 
Standish,  besides  being  courageous  as  a  grizzly 
bear,  was  both  a  scholar  in  military  literature 
and  a  master  of  the  art  of  war.  If  John  Alden 
had  not  Irish  blood  in  his  veins  there  was  in 
him  that  Celtic  dash  and  fire  without  which 
both  English  literature  and  history  would  lose 
half  their  charm. 

The  additional  immigrants  from  Leyden  who 
arrived  later  on  the  Pilgrim  fleet  were  well- 
seasoned  people  of  Christian  character.  These 
church  members  and  useful  citizens  had  been 
already  tested  in  the  trials  of  the  Pilgrim 
fellowship.  Yet  besides  these  were  scores  of 
people  of  very  uncertain  ability  or  character, 
who,  from  time  to  time,  were  shipped  over  by 
the  same  company  that  kept  back  Robinson. 
Added  to  these  were  scores  more  of  shady 

[315] 


■  HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

reputation  who  came  of  their  own  accord  or 
venture;  or,  as  Bradford  says,  "at  their  own 
particular."  They  were  the  grunters,  groaners, 
fault-finders,  grouchers,  pessimists,  and  the  gen- 
erally dissatisfied,  who  want  something  else  and 
are  always  looking  for  a  scapegoat.  Not  a 
few  of  these  worthies  gave  up  trying  in  their 
own  way  to  make  the  wilderness  blossom  as  the 
rose.  Returning  to  England  —  in  most  cases 
to  be  probably  more  or  less  of  a  burden  to 
others  —  they  circulated  all  sorts  of  stories, 
mostly  falsehoods,  as  to  the  badness  of  the  soil 
and  the  people.  In  any  land,  climate,  or  situa- 
tion such  people  would  relate  the  same  tale  of 
woe.  As  was  told  to  "dear  Brutus,"  they  were 
"underlings"  without  blame  to  the  stars. 

A  yellow  streak  was  found  even  in  the  minis- 
ters which  the  Plymouth  Company  in  England 
unloaded  in  America.  Among  the  several  cleri- 
cal gentlemen  of  the  wrong  kind  who  were  sent 
over  to  try  the  Pilgrim  soul  was  one  John  Ly- 
ford,  a  Puritan  preacher  in  the  State  Church 
in  England.  Lyford's  appointment  was  made 
against  the  protest  of  Winslow  and  Cushman 
who  were  present  at  the  Company's  meeting 
in  London.  With  his  wife  and  four  children  he 
came  to  Plymouth. 

This  clerical  person  was  soon  hand  in  glove 

[316] 


COSMOPOLITAN  ELEMENTS 

with  John  Oldham,  the  ringleader  of  the  mal- 
contents in  the  little  republic,  and  especially 
of  the  "Particulars"  who  were  "separatists" 
from  the  Pilgrim  ideal  and  order.  Oldham  be- 
gan active  operations  of  mutiny  by  refusing  to 
take  his  turn  at  guard  duty.  He  reviled  Cap- 
tain Standish,  called  him  outrageous  names, 
and  even  drew  a  knife  upon  him.  Thereupon 
Oldham  was  promptly  taught  what  military  dis- 
cipline meant.  He  was  clapped  into  the  guard- 
house and  kept  there  until  his  choler  cooled. 

Lyford,  without  asking  leave  of  any  one,  held 
meetings  on  Sunday  and  carried  things  with 
such  haughty  manners  and  a  high  hand  that 
Bradford  called  a  town  meeting.  The  whole 
gang  of  the  "Particulars"  was  summoned  to 
answer  the  charge  of  plotting  to  ruin  the  Pil- 
grim Colony.  At  the  trial  Oldham  called  on  his 
dupes  to  sustain  him,  but  they  were  dumb ;  for 
Bradford  showed  them,  in  court,  the  letters  of 
the  accused,  which  as  a  magistrate  he  had  in- 
tercepted. After  the  trial  and  conviction  of  the 
two  culprits  Lyford  confessed  his  perfidy  and 
was  exiled. 

Oldham,  having  been  deported,  came  back 
again  as  impudent  as  ever.  After  rearrest  and 
the  cooling  of  his  temper  in  the  guardhouse,  he 
was  brought  out  and  made  to  run  the  gantlet 

[  317  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

down  to  the  boat,  each  musketeer  giving  him 
a  thump  on  the  buttocks  as  he  passed.  After- 
wards he  lost  botli  his  temper  and  his  hfe  in  a 
quarrel  with  Indians,  who  used  the  tomahawk. 

One  need  not  subscribe  to  Palfrey's  dictum 
that  of  the  Pilgrims  only  "eleven  are  favor- 
ably known.  The  rest  are  either  known  unfavor- 
ably, or  else  only  by  name. "  There  seems  to  be 
here  in  this  summary  the  animus  of  both  the 
hostile  Puritan  and  the  pronounced  churchman. 
To  use  tlie  localisms  in  use  in  a  small  portion  of 
the  United  States,  it  seems  the  stricture  of  a 
"Liberal"  upon  the  "Orthodox." 

In  the  main,  as  rank  and  file,  the  Pilgrims 
were  of  the  plain  English  people  and  mostly 
countryfolk;  but,  led  by  four  or  five  mighty 
men  of  vision  and  ability  who  would  adorn  any 
age,  they  achieved  wonders.  Robinson,  Brew- 
ster, Bradford,  Winslow,  Carver,  and  Stan- 
dish,  representing  rich  culture,  theology,  law, 
diplomacy,  military  science,  and  executive  abil- 
ity, were  the  leaders,  but  all  were  infused  with 
one  spirit  which  animated  the  whole.  Every  one 
of  these  varied  talents  was  called  into  play  and 
used  oftener  than  once.  Of  the  morally  pro- 
tective influence  of  Standish  and  his  little  army 
in  behalf  of  the  colony,  there  can  be  no  two 
opinions. 

[318I 


COSMOPOLITAN  ELEMENTS 

As  to  the  ethnic  origin  or  ancestry  of  the  Pil- 
grim Fathers  born  in  England,  Dr.  M.  E.  Au- 
brey, of  Cambridge,  England,  tells  us,  in  1919, 
that  six  of  them  came  from  Yorkshire,  nine 
from  Nottinghamshire,  two  from  Lincoln- 
shire, seventeen  from  London,  seventeen  from 
Kent,  eleven  from  Essex,  and  thirty-two  from 
Norfolk. 

But  what  of  those  bearing  French,  Dutch, 
Belgian,  Welsh,  Scottish,  or  Irish  names  ?  For  the 
origin  of  such  as  Sowle  (Soule),  Mullens,  Alden, 
Tilley,  Prower,  Holbeck,  Minter,  Dotey,  Barnes 
(Barentz),  Houghton  (van  Houten),  Timmer- 
man.  Hanks,  Hanson,  Hoffman,  Jennings,  Jor- 
dan, Kern,  Freyer,  Gerry,  Hamel,  Knapp, 
Fiske,  Bates,  Gibbs,  Dwight,  Danvers,  Pack- 
ard, Trevore,  Walker,  Potwin,  Rogers,  Bertram, 
Best,  and  others,  which  we  have  met  with 
in  the  archives  or  documents,  we  must  look  to 
other  lands  than  England,  even  though  those 
who  bore  them  may  have  first  opened  their 
eyes  on  English  soil.  From  the  twelfth  century 
there  had  been  a  steady  stream  of  emigration 
from  France,  Flanders,  and  Walloon  Belgium 
into  England.  This  after  1567  swelled  into  a 
flood.  Within  a  few  generations  most  of  these 
names  in  their  original  form  had  disappeared, 
because  they  had  become  anglicized.  In  most 

[  319  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

names  beginning  with  de,  van,  and  other  pre- 
fixes, the  initial  syllable  was  dropped  or  coa- 
lesced with  the  stem. 

Even  if  genealogy-hunters,  who  shudder  at 
the  idea  of  a  non-English  pedigree,  can  prove 
that  the  parent  or  grandparents,  or  even  the 
several  generations,  of  this  or  that  person  were 
"English,"  one  can  still,  with  reasonable  prob- 
ability and  often  with  demonstration,  show  the 
origin  of  the  family  name  in  one  of  the  countries 
of  the  Continent,  or  in  Wales,  Scotland,  Ire- 
land, or  Scandinavia.  One  who  has  read  much 
in  the  lists  of  Walloon,  Fleming,  Dutch,  or  non- 
English  British  names,  especially  in  the  east- 
ern or  southern  counties,  sees  and  knows  how 
mixed  is  the  so-called  English  stock,  and,  mani- 
fold more,  the  American.  It  is  even  probable 
that  at  least  one  fourth  of  the  twenty  thousand 
or  more  of  the  people  who  came  into  New  Eng- 
land before  1645  were  Welsh,  Irish,  Scottish, 
or  of  Continental  origin.  Of  this  fact  the  true 
American,  who  is  a  real  student  of  ethnology 
and  racial  traits,  is  proud. 

In  a  word,  the  "Pilgrim  Fathers"  —  that  Is, 
the  Scrooby  pioneers,  the  Leyden  congregation, 
the  Mayflower  company,  and  the  immigrants 
brought  over  in  the  later  Pilgrim  ships,  to  the 
Plymouth  Colony  —  formed  a  true  type  of  the 
[  320  ] 


COSMOPOLITAN  ELEMENTS 

people  of  the  United  States.  Predominantly 
English,  reinforced  from  the  three  other  na- 
tions in  the  British  Isles,  and  enlarged  in  their 
ideas  as  well  as  in  their  numbers  from  Conti- 
nental Europe  by  men  and  women  who  were 
mostly  of  French  and  Netherlandish  descent, 
they  made  the  best  sort  of  a  mixed  company, 
and  prototypes  of  the  true  modern  Americans. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 
THE  PILGRIM  INHERITANCE 

The  Separatist  movement  to  Holland,  aided 
powerfully  —  like  the  pebble  which  in  the 
brook  at  its  source  diverts  the  course  of  the 
stream  —  to  turn  the  current  of  English  his- 
tory. 

This  exile  In  a  foreign  land  involved  toil  of 
both  body  and  spirit.  It  was  analogous  to  the 
labor  of  breaking  up  the  century-matted  soil 
of  a  prairie,  but  the  plough  was  driven  beam 
deep  into  the  crusted,  insular  soil  of  English 
conservatism. 

The  influence  of  Separatism,  reinforced  by 
Puritanism,  made  inevitable  the  civil  war 
which,  led  by  Cromwell  and  inspired  by  Milton, 
broke  out  a  generation  later.  Without  it  Eng- 
land, long  drifting  to  despotism,  would  have 
become  as  Spain  or  Germany.  The  English- 
man, Arber,  in  saying  that  without  that  politi- 
cal thunderstorm  the  regeneration  of  British 
society  and  the  constitution  would  have  been 
impossible,  voices  what  is  now  the  convic- 
tion of  a  majority  of  English-speaking  people. 
Green,  the  State  Churchman  and  historian, 
[  322  ] 


THE  PILGRIM  INHERITANCE 

proves  that  most  of  the  moral  forces  that  have 
made  the  England  of  our  time  —  so  vast  a 
blessing  to  the  world,  so  pleasant  to  dwell  in, 
so  rich  in  the  motherhood  of  self-governing  na- 
tions, and  of  which  the  American  descendant 
is  so  proud  —  came  from  the  Puritans;  and  of 
these  the  Pilgrims  were  the  best  and  most  con- 
sistent representatives. 

The  whole  story,  from  first  to  last,  of  the  Pil- 
grim spirit  and  polity,  as  against  those  of  ex- 
treme Puritanism,  showed  that  the  Leyden  and 
Plymouth  men  sought  out,  embodied  consist- 
ently, and  allowed  to  others  a  noble  and  un- 
selfish individualism.  This,  when  safeguarded 
and  restrained  by  an  enlightened  conscience, 
is  the  most  effective  preventive  of  autocracy 
and  despotism.  Yet  this  spirit  —  at  the  antip- 
odes of  lawlessness,  which  declares  that  "prop- 
erty is  robbery" — reaches  its  best  expression 
in  brotherhood.  When  thus  blended,  it  resists 
alike  the  soulless  corporation  and  the  ultra- 
egotistic  ruler.  No  other  principle  has  been 
so  deeply  inwrought  into  American  life,  or  is 
yet  so  potent  for  local  and  national  good,  as  this 
vital  element  in  the  Pilgrim  polity.  Over  and 
over  again  has  this  been  demonstrated,  while  it 
has  won  also  the  most  generous  acknowledg- 
ment in  the  world  at  large,  especially  since  the 

[  323  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

Great  War  and  victory  of  191 8.  "Under  God 
the  people  live." 

Some  illustrations,  arising  out  of  personal 
experience,  have  made  clearer  the  particular 
work  given  by  Providence  to  the  Separatists 
to  do. 

Theirs  was  the  glacial  age  in  English  politi- 
cal and  religious  development.  The  Pilgrim 
movement  was  that  flower  ever  blooming  out 
of  the  human  heart  —  the  yearning  after  God 
—  which  survived  darkness,  gloom,  and  cold. 
The  Pilgrim  story  reminds  one  of  the  little  pink 
blossom  of  the  Primula  Mistassinica,  now 
rarely  found  in  the  Empire  State,  and  only  on 
the  shady  side  of  the  ravines  and  rocky  sides  of 
streams  that  were  scooped  out  ages  ago  by  the 
grinding  ice  mass.  The  story  of  this  pre-glacial 
flower,  the  oldest  in  the  Commonwealth,  is  one 
of  vigor,  tenacity,  perseverance,  antiquity,  and 
beauty  sempiternal.  Labrador,  in  July,  reveals 
vast  areas  of  its  pink  glory.  The  more  south- 
ern glens  boast  its  beauty  in  May. 

So  America,  even  in  time  before  the  mother 
country,  appreciated  this  superb  product  of 
her  own  soil,  and  entered  into  the  full  inher- 
itance and  blessing  of  the  Pilgrim  glory,  with 
its  ever-abiding  fragrance.  In  this,  our  age, 
England  is  glad  enough  to  recognize  and  ap- 

[  324  ] 


THE  PILGRIM  INHERITANCE 

predate  what  is  peculiarly  American  and  what 
lies  at  the  roots  of  our  national  democracy, 
while  we  are  happy  to  reciprocate. 

It  is  well  also  to  study  the  Pilgrim  inher- 
itance, as  visible  in  other  parts  of  the  United 
States,  distant  from  the  threshold  rock.  In  the 
tenth  generation,  throwing  the  light  of  inter- 
pretation on  both  Dutch  and  English  traits,  I 
found  this  opportunity  in  a  place  where  the 
successors  of  both  Pilgrims  and  Holland  for- 
bears had  long  dwelt  and  intermarried.  These 
strains  of  blood,  equally  interesting,  showed 
some  characteristics  as  distinctive  as  are  the 
streams  of  Arve  and  Arveiron,  in  the  land  of 
the  Swiss ;  but  in  the  main,  virtues  and  defects 
were  balanced  in  each  and  both.  In  other  neigh- 
borhoods also  there  seemed  to  be  the  noblest 
of  rivalries  without  clash  and  of  much  emu- 
lation with  little  envy.  Such  a  place  of  In- 
dian name,  in  which  I  dwelt  nine  years,  was 
Schenectady,  where  names  famous  in  Pilgrim, 
Puritan,  Walloon,  Dutch,  and  Huguenot  his- 
tory, were  as  notable  as  their  bearers  were 
friendly  and  neighborly. 

In  Boston,  which  did  not  become  a  city  until 
1834,  during  seven  joyous  years,  and  at  Ithaca, 
New  York,  which  bears,  in  its  speech  and  local 
peculiarities,  the  earmarks  of  the  Midland  and 

[  32s  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

Eastern  English  counties,  I  noted  traits  of 
character  and  pccuHarities  of  speech  which  still 
linger  in  the  three  places.  These  enable  one  to 
interpret  the  life  of  our  ancestors  and  to  picture 
again  to  the  imagination  the  "old  lands  our 
fathers  held  so  dear." 

Yet  I  find  myself  unable  to  award  praise  to 
one  sort  of  American  more  than  another' — • 
Easterner  or  Westerner,  Northerner  or  South- 
erner, Yankee  or  cosmopolitan.  In  traveling 
through  different  parts  of  our  country,  ever 
with  hearts  and  homes  open  to  my  enjoyment, 
it  is  a  constant  surprise  to  me  that  the  people 
in  one  part  of  our  country  should,  for  any 
profound  reason,  think  themselves  any  better 
than  those  in  the  other  parts. 

The  conclusion  arrived  at  was,  rather,  that 
the  virtues  and  inheritances  from  the  cosmo- 
politan Pilgrim  pioneers  and  those  like  them 
in  spirit  had  been  widely  disseminated.  We 
Americans  all,  like  the  Separatists,  have  had 
to  outgrow  some  of  our  less  pleasing  inherit- 
ances. 

In  the  three  hundred  years  that  have  elapsed 
the  various  churches  have  learned  much  by 
experience  under  conditions  different  from 
those  in  the  Old  World,  and  even  more  from 
each  other,  to  their  mutual  and  general  ad- 

[326] 


THE  PILGRIM  INHERITANCE 

vantage.  What  is  manifestly  true  of  the  re- 
ligious is  equally  and  demonstrably  true  also 
in  our  social  and  political  life.  Because  of  the 
sisterhood  of  States  the  advantages  of  one  sec- 
tion have  or  may  become  the  blessing  of  the 
National  Commonwealth. 

The  life  course  of  the  State  and  of  civiliza- 
tion is  like  that  of  the  human  body,  which  is 
continually  changing.  Our  physical  organiza- 
tion casts  out  the  old  and  incorporates  new 
elements,  so  that  the  entire  substance,  in  limbs 
and  trunk,  is  renewed  every  five  years.  Before 
forty  years  have  passed  a  man  has  used  up  the 
substance  of  eight  bodies,  while  still  in  pos- 
session of  the  one  body  in  which  he  lives. 

In  the  study  of  history  it  is  ever  the  duty  of 
the  student  to  learn  what  in  the  past  is  effete 
and  out,  and  what  is  permanent,  new,  and  in 
fresh  vigor.  It  is  like  the  difference  between 
fact,  which  is  something  dead  and  done;  and 
truth,  which  is  ever  living  and  eternal.  No  one 
has  more  clearly  stated  this  law  of  life  than 
Paul,  the  cosmopolitan  Christian,  who  tells  us 
that  "  though  our  outward  man  perish,  the  in- 
ward man  is  renewed  day  by  day." 

This  principle  of  ever-renewing  life  explains 
also  what  is  so  often  seen  in  history.  A  certain 
body  of  people  starts  out  with  grand  ideas  and 

[  327  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS ' 

noble  principles;  but  after  several  generations 
they  settle  down  into  stupid  unprogressive- 
ness  and  even  become  reactionary.  They  are 
fossils,  rather  than  living,  and  therefore  grow- 
ing, organisms.  These  same  people  keep  the 
name,  while  the  reality  of  the  original  spirit  in 
the  founders  has  passed  away.  Be  it  Buddhism 
or  Christianity,  or  let  the  battle-cry,  motto, 
or  place  of  habitation  be  what  it  may,  this  is 
the  law  of  decay.  The  springs  dry  up.  They 
harden  in  mannerisms  and  barren  tradition, 
but  are  dead.  The  Council  of  Nice  stands  for 
one  specimen  in  the  museum  of  history;  and 
the  Council  of  Trent  for  another.  The  petty 
sects,  now  dead,  but  once  vigorously  alive, 
suggest  infusorial  earth. 

Renewal  of  life  in  religion  as  in  society  and 
government  comes  only  from  those  in  whom 
are  the  inner  workings  of  aspiration  after  a 
higher  life.  Men  that  are  acute  enough  to 
pierce  the  veil  of  their  old  traditional  life, 
which  to  them  is  the  rotting  shroud  of  a  dead 
past,  would  make  progress  and  keep  the  race 
from  stagnation;  but  in  one  way  or  another 
such  men  are  usually  sent  by  their  fellows  to 
join  the  glorious  army  of  martyrs.  Those  who 
want  things  to  continue  as  they  are,  men  iden- 
tified with  vested  interests,  In  love  with  their 
[328] 


THE  PILGRIM  INHERITANCE 

own  mental  indolence,  or  sodden  in  lust  of 
lucre  and  steeped  in  worldly  ambitions,  use  the 
name  "heretic."  They  raise  the  cry  of  "crucify," 
preliminary  to  the  action  of  Church  and  State 
when  Caiaphas  and  Pilate  join  hands  in  plant- 
ing the  cross.  From  this  spirit  the  Separatists 
suffered. 

The  Pilgrims  took  the  risk,  had  their  ideals 
tested,  proved  their  threefold  devotion  at 
home,  in  a  foreign  land,  and  beyond  the  sea  in 
the  wilderness.  They  won  a  glory  that  cen- 
turies have  not  dimmed.  It  is  ours  to  live  up 
to  those  ideals. 

Whatever  be  the  faults  and  failings  of  the 
Pilgrims,  when  judged  at  the  bar  of  history 
theirs  was  an  honest,  earnest  attempt  to  ap- 
ply the  law  of  Christ  to  Church  and  State — ■ 
the  only  true  democracy.  They  survived  ithe 
crucible  and  acid  tests  of  persecution,  both 
petty  and  grand,  in  banishment,  poverty,  hun- 
ger, loneliness,  and  ecclesiastical  nagging.  This 
spiritual  valor,  this  human  greatness,  displayed 
by  people  in  humble  and  lowly  life,  is  surely 
equal  to  that  of  the  mighty  and  famous.  "All 
service  ranks  the  same  with  God."  The  Pil- 
grim heroism  has  been,  and  will  continue  to  be, 
the  inspiration  to  art  and  literature,  in  ever 
fresh  interpretations  and  in  church-  and  state- 

[  329  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

craft  in  new  applications.  The  creations  of  true 
genius  "for  glory  and  for  beauty"  will  be  to 
the  enduring  splendor  of  both  the  underlying 
facts  and  simple  truth.  The  prophecy  of  Pas- 
tor Robinson  will  ever  continue  in  course  of 
glorious  fulfillment. 

Applying  the  prism  of  the  Bible  to  analyze 
and  discriminate  the  colors  in  the  variant 
spectrum  of  the  Puritans  and  the  Pilgrims,  it 
may  be  said  that,  while  both  were  rich  in 
Hebraic  culture  and  spirit,  the  former  were 
more  like  men  of  the  Old  Testament  type,  as 
Moses,  Samuel,  or  Ezra;  while  the  latter,  per- 
haps more  immediately  familiar  with  the  Scrip- 
tures of  the  New  Covenant,  remind  one  more 
of  Paul,  John,  and  James.  Besides  the  ancient 
Hebraic  cast  of  mind  both  were  rich  in  the 
spiritual  culture  suited  to  the  saints  of  the 
synagogue.  Yet  it  is  manifest,  from  both  the 
higher  and  the  lower  criticism  of  their  writings 
and  a  survey  of  their  respective  histories,  that 
the  Pilgrims,  besides  being  the  more  assiduous 
students  of  the  New  rather  than  of  the  Old 
Testament,  tried  the  more  earnestly  to  em- 
body its  spirit  and  teaching  in  their  dealings 
with  men. 

Very  few  of  the  infirmities  and  errors  rightly 
ascribed  to  tlie  Puritans,  especially  in  the  line 

[  330  ] 


THE  PILGRIM  INHERITANCE 

of  the  witchcraft  delusion  and  the  persecutions 
of  men  and  women  of  differing  creeds  and  forms 
of  faith,  can  be  told  of  the  Pilgrims.  This  is 
the  case  despite  the  fact  that  vulgar  tradition 
makes  little  or  no  discrimination.  It  is  true, 
even  though  speakers  and  writers,  from  whom 
we  expect  better  things,  are,  on  this  theme, 
continually  mixed  in  their  rhetoric  and  after- 
dinner  talks.  We  Americans  are  steadily  rising 
as  a  people  above  the  Puritans  and  entering 
into  the  nobler  Pilgrim  ideals. 

Those  who  can  find  no  intrinsic  necessity  or 
warrant  of  permanency  from  Jesus  Christ  for 
the  artificial  distinction  between  "lay"  and 
"clerical"  will  behold  in  the  whole  Pilgrim 
story  nothing  disruptive  or  divisive,  but  rather 
a  principle  of  sound  construction.  Hid  in  its 
three  measures  of  meal  the  Pilgrim  leaven  has 
wrought  mightily;  not  in  a  trio  of  countries 
only,  but  measurably  in  all  the  earth.  Whether 
among  the  sixscore  millions  in  the  homelands 
of  English  speech  or  in  the  mission  fields  of  six 
continents,  the  Pilgrim  model  of  life  and  gov- 
ernment is  followed  more  or  less  closely. 

The  Pilgrim  Church  still  lives  in  the  eighty- 
five  thousands  of  living  descendants  of  the 
Pilgrim  Company  and  in  the  hearts  of  all  who 
are  blessed  with  the  children  of  the  world's  first 

[  331  ] 


HISTORY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS 

great  pilgrim,  faithful  Abraham.  Between  the 
two  poles  of  independence  and  fellowship, 
poised  upon  the  New  Testament,  the  needle  of 
her  choice  and  duty  swings  tremblingly  ever 
to  her  Lord  and  Master,  Christ  Jesus  the  reve- 
lation of  the  Father. 

It  behooves  all  not  to  sit  idly  at  the  fountains 
of  the  past,  neither  to  glory  in  pedigree  so  much 
as  in  divine  power  freshly  given  day  by  day. 
To  live  up  to  the  ideals  of  the  fathers,  to  enter 
more  fully  into  the  true  spirit  of  the  originals, 
by  having  sound  minds  and  bodies,  and  by 
feeding  our  spirits  as  they  fed  theirs  —  that  is 
tlie  true  Pilgrim  inheritance. 

Nisi  Dominus  frustra. 


CHRONOLOGICAL  FRAMEWORK  OF  THE 

STORY  OF  A  FREE  CHURCH  IN 

A  FREE  STATE 


CHRONOLOGICAL  FRAMEWORK  OF  THE 

STORY  OF  A  FREE  CHURCH  IN 

A  FREE  STATE 

A.D. 

1 1 65.  The  weavers  of  Worcester  claim  rights  of  con- 
science. Punished  as  heretics. 
1270.  William  of  Occam  asserts  the  supremacy  of  the 
Scriptures. 
I324-1384.  John  Wycliffe,  the  Lollards,  and  the  Bible  in 
English. 
1380.  Act  passed  for  burning  heretics  in  England. 
I483-1540.  Luther  in  Germany. 
1484-153 1.  Zwinglius,  Independent,  in  Switzerland. 
1485-1603.  House  of  Tudor,  Henry  VII  to  Elizabeth. 

1487.  Star  Chamber  established. 
1491-1547.  Henry  VIII.  1541.  "Defender  of  the  Faith." 

1503.  Margaret  tarried  in   Scrooby,  on  her  way  to 
marry  James  IV  of  Scotland. 
1509-1564.  Calvin  in  France  and  Switzerland. 

1516.  The  Greek  New  Testament.  Erasmus. 
1521.  The  Anabaptist  Movement.   Champions  of  a 
free  church  in  a  free  state.  Democracy  applied 
to  religion. 
1526.  Tyndale's  version  of  the  Bible. 

1528.  First  Protestant  martyr  burned  in  England. 

1529.  Fall  of  Wolsey. 

1530.  Spinning-wheel  introduced  from  Germany. 
1534.  England  breaks  with  Rome. 

1540-1567.  Guido  de  Bray  and  the  Belgic  Confession. 

1549.  First  Prayer-Book  in  English. 

1550.  The  Huguenots  in  France. 

1550-1633.  Robert  Browne,  Reformer  and  Free  Churchman. 

1552.  Flight  of  English  Puritans  to  the  Continent. 
1553-1558.  "Bloody  Mary,"  Queen  of  England. 

[  335  ] 


CHRONOLOGY 

1556-1644.  William    Brewster,    Elder    in    the    Plymouth 

Church. 
1558-1603,  Elizabeth,  Queen  of  England,  Defender  of  the 
Faith. 
1560.  Geneva  Version  of  the  Bible.  In  constant  use  by 

the  Pilgrims  in  their  three  homes. 
1564.  Death  of  John  Calvin.  Shakespeare  born.  The 

Huguenots  in  Florida. 
1567.  Flight  of  the  Protestant  Walloons  and  Flemings 

from  Belgium. 
1567.  Alva  invades  the  Netherlands.  Flight  of  the  Wal- 
loons and  Flemings  to  England  and  Holland. 
Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  dethroned. 
1571-1622.  Henry  Ainsworth,  Pastor  and  Hebrew  scholar. 
1576-1625.  John  Robinson,  Prophet  and  Leader. 

1577.  William   the    Silent   proclaims   liberty   of   con- 
science. "Religion  free  for  all  men." 
1579-1581.  The  Dutch  Republic  and  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence. Religion,  in  the  house,  free  for  all. 
1582.  At  Middelburg,  Robert  Browne's  book  on  "A 
Free  Church  in  a  Free  State." 

1586.  Six  thousand  British  soldiers  sent  to  aid  the 
Dutch. 

1587.  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  executed.  Davison  im- 
prisoned. Brewster  at  Scrooby. 

1587-1588.  Little  gatherings  of  Independents  in  London. 

1588.  Martin  Marprelate  tracts. 

1589.  Dordrecht  a   center  of  printing  Free  Church 
publications. 

1590.  John  Penry,  martyr  and  first  Pilgrim  Father. 
1590-1657.  William  Bradford,  Historian  of  the  Pilgrim  Com- 
pany and  Governor  of  Plymouth  Colony. 

1591.  Francis  Johnson,  book-burner  at  Middelburg, 
converted. 

1592.  First  known  Congregational  Church  formed  in 
London. 

1593.  Earliest  modern  Congregational  Creed. 
1593.  Martyrs  of  Independency. 

1 336] 


CHRONOLOGY 

1593-1595.  Flight  of  the  London  Free  Churchmen  to  Am- 
sterdam. 
1597.  Attempt   to   settle   Rainea,   in   Newfoundland. 

Controversy  in  Amsterdam  as  to  clothes. 
1602.  The  church  at  Gainsborough.  The  Covenant, 
heart  of  a  Congregational  Church. 

1603-1625.  James  I  of  England. 

1604.  Scrooby  congregation  formed.  John  Calvin, 
having  displaced  the  sway  of  Augustine  over  the 
mind  of  Europe,  trained  the  leaders  of  the  Re- 
formed Church,  applied  representative  govern- 
ment to  religion,  and  laid  the  ethical  foundations 
of  modern  civilization,  dies  at  Geneva. 

1606-1669.  Rembrandt,    born    at   Leyden,    the   painter  of 
Puritanism. 

1607.  Flight  of  the  Scrooby  Church  to  Holland. 

1608.  The  year  in  Amsterdam  —  Refugees  and  Sepa- 
ratist churches. 

1609.  The  Great  Truce  in  the  war  with  Spain.  Henry 
Hudson,  in  the  Half  Moon,  enters  the  Delaware 
and  Hudson  rivers.  Robinson  and  the  Scrooby 
company  remove  to  Leyden.  Growth  and  con- 
solidation. Peace  and  prosperity. 

1612.  "Pilgrim"  Settlement.  House  in  Leyden  bought. 

New  Netherland  and  New  England  receive  their 

names. 
1609-1619.  Maurice  and  Barneveldt.  Testing  of  the  Dutch 

Republic.   Secession   and  coercion.   The  Union 

triumphant.  Federal  government  vindicated, 
1616-1619.  Brewster's  printing-press  in  Bell  Alley. 

1619.  The  Great  Synod  of  Dort.  Robinson  champion 
of  Calvinism. 

1620.  Debate  on  emigration.  The  Mayflower  leaves 
London,  July  15.  Sailing  of  the  Speedwell, 
July  23.  Arrival  at  Southampton,  July  27.  The 
Mayflower  and  Speedwell  sail  from  Southamp- 
ton, August  5.  At  Dartmouth,  August  12-23. 
At  Plymouth,  August  28-September  6.  Voyage 

I  337  1 


CHRONOLOGY 

of  the  Mayflower,  September  6-November  II. 

Exploration    and    adventure,    November    27- 
Dcccmber  20. 

1621.  The  Common  House,  Fort,  and  Church.  The 
Great  Sickness.  Return  of  the  Mayflower. 
Standish  appointed  Captain.  The  ship  Fortune 
arrives.  Thirty-five  immigrants. 

1622.  First  marriage  in  the  colony.  The  ships  Charity 
and  Swan  arrive  with  immigrants. 

1623.  The  ships  Ann  and  Little  James  arrive,  with 
one  hundred  immigrants. 

1624.  Edward  Winslow  writes  the  book,  "Good  News 
from  New  England." 

1625.  First  cattle  imported. 
1625-1649.  Charles  I  of  England. 

1627.  Isaac  de  Rasieres  visits  Plymouth.  Tells  of  wam- 
pum or  Indian  money.  His  picture  of  Pilgrim 
life.  The  Pilgrims  are  free.  Attain  economic  inde- 
pendence. 

1630.  First  capital  punishment.  The  great  Puritan 
immigration.  Boston  founded. 

1635.  Connecticut  settled. 

1637.  Jepson  dies.  The  Leyden  real  estate  of  the  Pil- 
grims sold. 

1638.  First  house  of  worship  erected  at  Plymouth. 

1642.  Civil  war  in  England.  Emigration  to  America 
suspended. 

1643.  Brick  watch  tower  at  Plymouth. 
1643-1684.  The  New  England  Confederation. 
1649-1658.  The  English  Commonwealth. 

1650.  Puritan  notions  in  Church  and  State  influence 
legislation  and  modify  Pilgrim  ideals. 

1657.  Bradford  dies,  having  written  the  "Historic  of 
Plimouth  Plantation." 

1658.  Last  traces  of  the  Pilgrims  in  Leyden. 
1660-1685.  Charles  II  of  England. 

1664.  Treacherous  conquest  of  New  Netherland. 
1676.  Second  fort  built,  with  palisades  ten  feet  high. 

[338] 


CHRONOLOGY 

1683.  Second  house  of  worship  at  Plymouth. 
1685-1688.  James  II  of  England. 

1686.  Cross  and  pine  tree  flag.  Sir  Edmund  Andros 
arrives. 

1688.  The  English  Revolution.  King  William  III.  The 
colonies  north  of  New  York  made  into  one  prov- 
ince. 
1690-1850.  New  Plymouth,  with  seventeen  towns  and 
thirteen  thousand  people,  ceases  to  exist.  The 
story  of  the  Pilgrims  lost  in  that  of  the  Puri- 
tans. 

1741.  Plymouth  Rock  reidentified  by  Elder  Thomas 
Faunce.  First  celebration  at  Plymouth  in  honor 
of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers. 

1774-  Bradford's  manuscript  disappears. 

1775.  Plymouth  Rock  split  in  half,  while  removing  the 
liberty  pole,  inscribed  with  "Liberty  or  Death." 
The  upper  portion  remained  in  the  town  square 
until  1834,  and  separated  for  one  hundred  and 
five  years. 

1799.  First  use  of  the  phrase  "The  Pilgrim  Fathers." 

1817.  Edwin  White's  painting  of  the  "Signing  of  the 
Compact." 

1 8 19.  Old  Colony  Pilgrim  Society  formed. 

1820.  Daniel  Webster's  famous  oration  on  the  Pil- 
grims. 

1823.  Leyden  Street:  original  name  First;  later  Broad; 
renamed  at  Plymouth,  Massachusetts. 

1824.  Pilgrim  Hall  erected  at  Plymouth,  Massachu- 
setts, by  the  Pilgrim  Society. 

1834.  The  upper  part  of  Plymouth  Rock  again  re- 
moved to  an  enclosed  spot  near  Pilgrim  Hall. 
Painting  of  "The  Landing  of  the  Pilgrims,"  by 
Henry  Sargent,  of  Boston. 

1845.  Charles  West  Cope's  fresco  painting  in  the  cor- 
ridor of  the  House  of  Parliament,  first  entitled 
"A  Puritan  Family  Embarking  for  America." 
Several  years  later,  after  repeated  protests,  the 

[  339  ] 


CHRONOLOGY 

title  was  changed  to  "Embarkation  of  the  Pil- 
grim Fathers  in  the  Mayflower." 

1845.  Robert  W.  Weir's  painting  of  "The  Embarka- 
tion of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,"  at  Delfshaven,  in 
the  Rotunda  at  Washington. 

1848.  Dr.  C.  N,  Kist,  of  Leyden,  recovers  the  names 
of  the  Pilgrims  in  the  Dutch  archives. 

1853.  W.  H.  Bartlett,  English  artist,  writes  the  book 
"The  Pilgrim  Fathers." 
1855-1856.  Bradford's   manuscript   found   at   Fulham   Li- 
brary. Printed. 

1859.  Corner-stone  of  the  National  Monument  at 
Plymouth  laid. 

i860.  Schwartze's   historic  painting   of    "  The  First 
Sabbath  of  the  Pilgrims  at  Plymouth." 
1865-1904.  George  H.  Boughton's  interpretive  pictures  of 
Pilgrim  life. 

1872.  Charles  Lucy's  painting,  "Embarkation  of  the 
Pilgrims,"  in  the  new  State  House  in  Boston. 

1880.  The  two  separated  parts  of  Plymouth  Rock  re- 
united in  its  old  place  of  1620.  Granite  canopy 
erected. 

1885.  Statue  of  the  Pilgrim,  by  J.  Q.  Adams  Ward, 
Central  Park,  New  York. 

1889.  The  National  Monument  at  Plymouth  in  honor 
of  the  Pilgrims  completed  and  dedicated. 

1891.  "International  Council  of  the  Congregational 
Churches  of  the  World"  held  in  London.  Bronze 
tablet  in  honor  of  John  Robinson  unveiled  at 
Leyden.  Memorial  windows  and  commemora- 
tive exercises  in  the  Town  Hall  and  granite  slab 
in  honor  of  the  Pilgrims  set  in  the  Barbican, 
at  Plymouth,  England. 

1897.  Bradford's  manuscript  received  in  Boston. 

1898.  Two  bas-reliefs  in  honor  of  the  Pilgrims  on 
facade  of  the  Congregational  House  in  Boston. 

1902.  The  International  Social  Club,  "The  Pilgrims," 
formed  in  England. 

[   340  ] 


CHRONOLOGY 

1904.  The  General  Society  of  the  Mayflower  Descend- 
ants formed,  with  the  periodical  "The  May- 
flower Descendant." 

1906.  Bronze  tablet  in  honor  of  the  Pilgrims  unveiled 
at  Delfshaven. 

1907.  Corner-stone  of  Memorial  Tower  at  Province- 
town,  Massachusetts,  laid, 

1909.  Bronze  tablet  in  honor  of  the  Pilgrims  un- 
veiled at  Amsterdam.  John  Robinson  Memorial 
Church  dedicated  at  Gainsborough,  England. 

1910.  Memorial  Tower  at  Provincetown,  Massachu- 
setts, dedicated. 

1913.  Bronze  tablet  in  honor  of  Robert  Browne  and 
the  Separatists  unveiled  at  Middelburg.  Me- 
morial shaft  and  effigy  of  the  Mayflower  un- 
veiled at  Southampton,  England.  Sumptuous 
annotated  edition  of  Bradford's  "  Historic " 
issued  by  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society. 

1919.  International  Memorial  at  Geneva,  one  panel 
depicting  "  The  Compact."  Arrival  at  Plymouth, 
England,  near  the  spot  whence  the  Mayflower 
sailed,  of  the  American  aeroplane,  N.C.-4. 
Committees  formed  in  several  countries  for 
celebration  in  England,  Holland,  America,  and 
colonies,  of  the  tercentenary  anniversary  of  the 
Pilgrims'  landing  at  Plymouth. 


INDEX 


Actors,  19. 

Adams,  John,  12,  14,  147,  171. 

Adams,  John  Quincy,  171. 

Aeroplanes,  207,  341. 

Ainsworth,   Henry,   141,   144,   I45. 

336. 
Alden,  John,  205,  230,  302,  315,  319. 
Algonquins,  250-55,  260. 
AUerton  family,  228,  230,  232. 
Altars,  178,  179. 
Alva,  336. 

America,  27,  339,  341. 
American  food,  i,  251,  252,  263,  302. 
American  history,  259,  260, 306, 307, 

325-28. 
American  ideas,  133,  134,  323. 
American  origins,  3,  156,  164,  170- 

73.  325,  326. 
American  Revolution,  9, 10,  11,  171, 

339- 
Americanism,  5,  224,  284,  320,  325, 

326. 
Americans  in  England,  i-io,  63. 
Ames,  Azel,  188,  193,  199,  226,  234. 
Amsterdam,  132,  140,  142-44,  146, 

149,  153,  154- 
Amusements,  9,  38-49,  50-55,  176, 

183. 
Anabaptists,  78,  79,  82,  145,  146, 

159,  335- 
Ancestry,  320. 
Andros,  Edmund,  303,  339. 
Angels,  36. 

Anglicanism,  307,  313. 
Anglicized  history,  137,  310. 
Anglo-Saxon  freedom,  171. 
Ann,  the  ship,  166,  197,  338. 
"Ansterfield,"  115,  117. 
Antwerp,  108,  142. 
Atlantic  coast,  247. 
Arabic,  272.^ 


Arber,  Edward,  322. 

Arbutus,  282. 

Archery,  43,  45,  116. 

Architecture,  7,  73,  127,  267. 

Archives,  16,  161,  340. 

Arminians,  190. 

Armistice,  147. 

Armor,  269. 

Arms  of  Amsterdam,  149. 

Arms  of  D  elf  shaven,  200. 

Arms  of  Ley  den,  318. 

Army,  i,  16,  261,  273. 

Arrows,  45,  197,  260,  266. 

Art,  Dutch,  12,  154,  190,  191,  252. 

Artillery,  45,  268. 

Artists,  51,  339,  340. 

Asia,  33. 

Aspinet,  269. 

Atlantic,  213,  214-21. 

Aubrey,  M.  E.,  319. 

Augustine,  248,  278,  279,  313,  337, 

Austerfield,  11 5-1 7,  236. 

Australians,  3. 

Auto-da-fe,  159. 

Autographs,  223,  226. 

Babies,  229,  231,  232,  280. 
Babworth,  117. 
Baltimore,  Lord,  15. 
Baptism,  116,  178,  313, 
Barbican,  207,  340. 
Barnes,  319. 

Barneveldt,  165,  190,  337. 
Barrowe,  Henry,  89-93,  I03- 
Barrowists,  89,  138-41,  157. 
Barter,  59,  289. 
Bartlett,  W.  H.,  340. 
Bastwick,  John,  313. 
Bas-reliefs,  267,  340. 
Batavia,  N.Y.,  172. 
Bates,  319. 


[  343  ] 


INDEX 


Baths,  6,  7. 

Bears,  40,  41. 

Beds,  7,  56,  239. 

Beggars,  22. 

Beguyn  chapel,  169. 

Beguyn  Hof,  159. 

Belgian  refugees,  31,  165,  285. 

Belgic  Confessors,  335. 

Bell  Alley,  106,  161,  261,  337. 

Bells,  23,  151. 

Bertram,  319. 

Best,  319. 

Bethlehem,  Pa.,  244. 

Bible,  35,  47,  SI,  56,  66,  102,  103, 

158, 176, 177,  214,  281,  335,  336. 
Bigots,  78. 
Billington  family,  228,  230, 232,  268, 

292,  293. 
Birds,  6,  46,  132,  151,  214,  237,  261, 

301. 
Bishops,  35,  64,  92,  99,  125,  205. 
Bleaching,  240. 
Boerhave,  170,  277. 
Book  of  Common  Prayer,  61,  65,  70. 
Books,  8,  21,  59,  83,  84,  90,  91,  103, 

125, 153.  176-78. 
Book-burning,  26,  336. 
Borrowings  from  Holland,   13,  14, 

15,  56,  137.  151.  238,  294. 
Boss,  II. 

Boston  in  England,  130,  131. 
Boston  in  Massachusetts,  145,  267, 

325.  338. 
"Bostons,  The,"  306. 
Boughton,  George  H.,  198,  202,  290, 

340. 
Boys,  8,  47,  237. 

Bradford,  Dorothy,  228,  230,  243. 
Bradford's  History,  71, 120, 163,  216, 

219,  293.  338,  339.  340,  341- 
Bradford,  William,  82,  84,  115-23. 
.    134,  136,  159.  187,  204,  249,  268, 

286-90,  297,  317,  336,  338,  340. 
Brewster  family,  227,  232,  236. 
Brewster,  William,  101-14,  152,  169, 

236,  318,  336. 
Bricks,  7,  126,  127,  237. 
Brides,  239. 


Bright,  John,  308. 

Bristol,  247. 

British  in  Holland,  107-09,  170-72, 

261,  336. 
Browne,   Robert,   82-85,   145,  314. 

336,341- 
Browning,  quoted,  330. 
Brownisten  Gang,  156,  159. 
Brownists,  83,  84,  89,  113,  I4S.  153- 

156,  158. 
Bryant,  244. 
Buddhism,  36. 
Bull-baiting,  42. 
Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress,  75. 
Burghley,  96. 
Burials,  4,  243-45,  279. 
Burns,  Robert,  68,  299. 
Butler,  Mary,  161. 
Butten,  William,  243. 
Butter,  205,  209,  251. 
Buttons,  56,  57. 

Cabots,  247,  256. 

Calendar,  22. 

Calvin,  70,  77,  81, 191, 335, 336, 337. 

Calvinism,  299,  313,  337. 

Calvinists,  181,  190. 

Cambridge,  90,  loi,  318. 

Canada,  295,  303,  304,  31O. 

Canals,  199. 

Canne,  John,  158. 

Cannon,  268. 

Cape  Cod,  83,  219,  223,  237,  248, 

264. 
Caricatures,  299,  316. 
Carillons,  151. 
Carpenter,  E.  J.,  236. 
Carr,  Sir  Edwin,  286. 
Carstairs,  William,  168. 
Cartwright,  82. 
Carver  family,  227,  231. 
Carver,  John,  175,  268,  318. 
Catchpole,  129-31,  204-05. 
Catholic,  313. 
Catholics,  291. 
Cats,  197. 

Cattle,  127,  301,  302,  338. 
Cautionary  Towns,  107. 


[  344  ] 


INDEX 


Cedar,  241. 

Celebrations,  339,  340. 

Celtic  strain,  315. 

Central  Park,  52,  340. 

Ceremonies,  314. 

Chancewell,  The,  140. 

Changelings,  58. 

Chantry,  24. 

Charity,  143, 144,  152,  ISS,  234. 

Charity,  the  ship,  338. 

Charles  I,  338. 

Charles  II,  338. 

Charters,  no. 

Cheese,  306. 

Chicago,  63,  159. 

Children,  130,  176,  184,  188,  304, 

30s,  311- 
Chilton  family,  229,  231. 
Chimneys,  54. 
China,  24,  26,  155. 
Christmas  Day,  268. 
Chronology,  335-41- 
Church,  35,  66,  67,  121,  215,  261. 
Church  and  State,  19-21,  34-37,  65, 

67,  68,  71,  76-78,  166,  167,  190, 

308,  329. 
Church  edifices,  166,  167,  169,  183, 

261. 
Church  in  the  Netherlands,  142, 178, 

189,  190. 
Church  of  England,  2,  308. 
Church  polity,  34,  72,  83,  91,  lOO, 

133.  181. 
Church  services,  176. 
Church,  the  Christian,  34,  100,  121, 

261. 
Civilization,  15,  16,  295,  301,  305, 

337- 
Clams,  251. 
Clark,  John,  140. 
Clark's  island,  267. 
Cleanliness,  6,  239,  240,  265. 
Clifton,  Richard,  132. 
Climate,  267,  274,  280,  282. 
Clothes  controversy,  157, 160,  337. 
Clothing,  238. 
Coasts,  218,  247,  248,  285. 
Cockney  English,  3. 


Cocks,  42,  43. 

Coke,  Lord,  96. 

Colonies  of  England,  61,  83,  92,  192, 

302,  303. 
Colonization,  190-94,  215,  235,  249, 

284,  302,  303. 
Commandery,  261. 
Common  House,  268,  270,  271,  280, 

338. 
Commonwealth  of  England,  338. 
Communal  spirit,  305,  323. 
Compact,  The,  69,  83,  98,  222-26, 

235.339,341. 
Confederation,  New  England,  272, 

302,  338. 
Conformists,  39,  83. 
Congregation,  66,  79. 
Congregational  churches,  82,  88,  99, 

133,  134.  157.  336. 
Congregational  clubs,  63. 
Congregational  House,  267,  340. 
Congregationalists,  71,  82,  103,  145, 

146,  312. 
Connecticut,  288. 
Consecrated  ground,  4,  36. 
Constantinople,  33. 
Constitution  of  the  Dutch,  1579, 190, 

191. 
Constitution  of  the  United  States, 

79,  82,  83. 
Constitutions  of   the  English  Col- 
onies, 83. 
Conventicles,  72,  73. 
Cooke  family,  233. 
Cooper,  Humility,  228,  230. 
Cope,  Charles  West,  339. 
Coppin,  221,  267. 
Corlaer,  256,  260. 
Corn,  I,  263,  264,  270. 
Cornell  University,  85. 
Cosmopolitan  elements,  1$,  310-21, 
Costume,  56,  58,  150,  277,  278. 
Council,  International,  340. 
Council  of  Nice,  328. 
Council  of  Trent,  328. 
Covenant,   83,   91,    134,   157,    186, 

223-26,  337. 
Covenant  of  Corlaer,  256,  260. 


[  345  ] 


INDEX 


Cows,  i8o,  302. 
Cradle  of  Liberty,  104. 
Cradles,  196. 
Crakston  family,  232. 
Cranks,  157,  291. 
Cranmer,  70. 
Creeds,  312,  313,  336. 
Cromwell,  63,  322. 
Crown  of  Thorns,  151. 
Curfew,  7,  56. 
Cushman,  228,  234,  316. 
Cuyps,  202. 

Danes,  124,  125,  169. 

Danvers,  319. 

Dartmouth,  206,  211,  337. 

Dates.  See  Chronological  Framework, 

335-41- 
Daughters,  50,  51. 
Davison,  William,  loi,  102,  1 12-14, 

336. 
Deaconess,  183-184. 
Decapitation,  17,  20,  72,  73,  271. 
Declaration  of  American  Independ- 
ence, 254. 
Declaration  of  Dutch  Independence, 

83,  336. 
Deer,  17. 
Defoe,  301. 

Delaware  Indians,  260. 
Delfshaven,  195,  200-03,  236,  340. 
Delusions,  60. 
Democracy  in  the  church,  25,  82-84, 

122,  133,  157,  179,  329,  335. 
Democracy  in  the  world,  86, 122, 171, 

191,  308. 
Dennis,  William,  89. 
Deportation,  317. 
De  Rasieres,  285,  289,  338. 
Descendants,  331,  340. 
Deuteronomy,  187. 
Dialects  (English)  162,  163. 
Dictionnaire  Eistorique,  La  Grande, 

144. 
Diet,  275-77,  279. 
Dikes,  109,  150,  200. 
District  attorney,  85. 
Dogs,  17,  46,  197,  262,  302. 


Domesday  Book,  125. 

Dordrecht,  91,  143,  179,  191,  336, 

337- 
Dotey,  319. 
Dragons,  48. 
Dreams,  53. 
Dress,  56,  277,  278. 
Drink,  i,  251,  263,  277. 
Drums,  195,  196,  289. 
Dunkirk  pirates,  192,  194,  203,  285. 
Durie,  Robert,  168. 
Dutch  art,  12,  154,  179. 
Dutch  housekeeping,  238-40. 
Dutch  language,  205,  286. 
Dutch  law,  14,  294. 
Dutch  navigators,  248. 
Dutch  Republic,  14,  82,  97,  102-08, 

109,  137,  190-95,  251,  286. 
Dutch,  the,  10,  12,  238,  325. 
Dutch  words,  150,  306. 
Duxbury,  273. 
D wight,  319. 

Easel,  242. 

East  India  Company  (Dutch),  201, 

202. 
Eaton  family,  229,  231,  233. 
Economics,  62, 193, 284, 286-89, 302, 

304,  338. 
Education  in  England,  105,  235. 
Education  in  Holland,  105. 
Elders,  141,  157,  339. 
Elections,  103,  158. 
Eliot,  Charles  W.,  236. 
Elizabethan  era,  27,  28,  58,  96. 
Elizabeth,  Queen,  35,  39,  71,  72,  95, 

109.  277,  335,  336. 
Emigrations,  69,  319. 
England  and  America,  1-16,  136. 
Englands,  the  two,  92,  307,  309. 
English  history,  64,  68,  69,  308,  322. 
English  language  (1620),  161-63. 
English-speaking  peoples,  307. 
English  stock,  320. 
Episcopal  Church,  100. 
Erasmus,  335. 
Essex,  319. 
EstabUshed  Chtirch,  5,  307. 


[346I 


INDEX 


Eugenics,  290. 
Evil  spirits,  60. 
Executions,  20,  64. 
Exodus,  148,  196. 
Exploration,  261-68,  338 
Ezra,  74,  194- 

Fairies,  22,  23,  59,  60. 

Fairs,  8,  59. 

Fairy-lore,  22,  23. 

Family  religion,  35,  67,  68,  304. 

Faunce,  Thomas,  339. 

Federal  government,  5,  13,  189,  190, 

303.  337- 
Female  costume,  56-58,  157. 
Fertilizers,  251. 
Festivals,  24,  51. 
Feudalism,  92,  109,   no,   129,   149, 

258. 
Fights,  266,  271. 
Fillmore,  167,  287. 
Finances,  11,  171, 192, 193,  205, 302. 
Firearms,  45,  203,  210,  265-67,  293, 

296,  297. 
Fires,  54,  82,  270. 
First  encounter,  256,  260,  264-67. 
Fish,  125,  251,  301. 
Fishing,  248,  281,  282. 
Fiske,  319. 

Flags,  American,  12,  150,  303,  339. 
Flags,  British,  69. 
Flags,  Dutch,  12,  104,  148,  149,  150, 

165,  203,  303. 
Flags,  English,  148,  202. 
Flanders,  245,  319. 
Flemings,  30-32,  55.  69,  116,  336. 
Florida,  336. 
Flowers,  52,  53,  105,  122,  280,  282, 

324- 
Folk  art,  49. 

Food,  American,  i,  251,  263. 
Food,  Dutch,  9,  10,  106,  107,  153. 
Food,  English,  281. 
Food,  Mayflower,  274,  277,  279. 
Food,  Plymouth,  264,  270,  279,  281. 
Forests,  6,  197,  232,  237,  266. 
Forks,  55. 
Fort,  the,  268,  269,  271,  338. 


Forts,  203,  338: 

Fortune,  the  ship,  166,  338 

France,  69,  226,  319. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  171. 

Free  Churches,  61,  65,  66,  88,  97, 

141,  177,  178,  307,  335- 
Freedom    of    conscience,    80,    146, 

153,  168,  173,  224. 
French,  143.  3 n.  313- 
French  churches,  142. 
Freyer,  319. 
Fuel,  54. 

Fuller  family,  229,  231,  233, 
Fun,  47-49,  51,  151. 

Gainesborough,  128,  133,  185,  337, 

341. 
Gallows,  92,  99,  138. 
Games,  51,  151. 
Gardens,  51-55. 
Gantlet,  317. 
Genealogy,  174,  290,  320. 
Genesis,  148. 

Geneva,  66,  70,  145,  178,  376. 
Geneva  discipline,  178. 
George,  Lloyd,  308. 
George,  Saint,  48. 
George  III,  107,  306,  308. 
Germans,  143,  169. 
German  words,  151. 
Germany,  69,  70,  81,  109,  322. 
Gerry,  319. 
Gettysburg,  190,  307. 
Gibbs,  319. 
Gideon,  207,  242. 
Girls  in  America,  155,  229,  231,  234, 

245- 
Girls  in  England,  8,  48,  49,  50-62, 

155- 
Girls  in  Holland,  105,  155,  196. 
Glaciated  areas,  248. 
Glaciers,  248,  324. 
Gladstone,  W.  E.,  92,  308. 
Glass,  54. 

God-filled  men,  122. 
Godly,  Helen,  94. 
Gosnold,  Bartholomew,  248. 
Grafters,  130,  255. 


[  347 


INDEX 


Grant,  General,  273. 

Gravcsend,  141. 

Graves  of  the  Pilgrims,  243-45. 

Greek  language,  35,  66. 

Greek  scholars,  33. 

Green,  J.  R.,  322,  323. 

Greenwood,  John,  89-93. 

Grimsby,  131. 

Guide  de  Bray,  335. 

Guns,  45,  264-67,  290,  293,  296. 

Haarlem,  155. 

Hale,  Nathan,  96. 

Half  Moon,  the  ship,  155,  197,  204, 

206,  337. 
Hague,  The,  107,  147. 
Hamel,  319. 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  308. 
Hanks,  319. 
Hanson,  319. 
Harrison,  Robert,  86. 
Hatch,  Edwin,  164. 
Hawthorne,  175. 
Health,  274-79. 
Hebraic  culture,  144,  145,  178. 
Hebraic  inheritances,  148. 
Hebrew  language,  144,  145. 
Henry  VHI,  17,  126,  180,  335. 
Henty,  109. 
Heraldry,  255. 
Herbs,  52. 

Heredity,  38,  320,  325,  326. 
Heresy,  77,  121. 
Heretics,  45,  135,  191,  329. 
History,  9,  14,  26,  151. 
Hoffman,  319. 
Holbeck,  319. 

Holland-American  Line,  201,  203. 
Holland,  country,  14,  16. 
Holland,  province,  191. 
Holmes,  J.  H.,  122. 
Holmes,  O.  W.,  297. 
Holy  water,  126. 
Homes,  304,  305. 
Hooker,  Richard,  192. 
Hopewell,  the,  140. 
Hopkins  family,  230,  232. 
Horace,  278. 


Houghton,  319. 

House,  117,  268. 

House  of  Commons,  gi. 

House  of  Lords,  6,  64. 

Houses,  7,  161,  268. 

Howland,  John,  229,  231. 

Hoyt,  Barbara,  236. 

Hudson,  Henry,  155,  204,  206,  209, 

337- 
Hudson  River,  219,  220. 
Huguenots,  142,  143,  335,  336. 
Hume,  42. 
Hussites,  144. 

Hygiene,  21,  22,  54,  55,  275-78. 
Hymns,  99,  144,  236. 

Independents,  124,  336. 

India,  154. 

Indian  corn,  i,  251,  263. 

Indians,  249-60,  288,  295.  ' 

Individualism,  323. 

Infancy,  196,  305. 

Inquisition,  192. 

Insulinde,  154. 

International  Council,  340. 

International  Memorial,  34. 

International  Social  Club,  340. 

Interpretations,  78,  83,  186. 

Inventions,  13. 

Irish,  162,  163,  168,  315. 

Iroquois  Confederacy,  250,  260, 289. 

Islington,  72. 

Italy,  28,  29,  32. 

Ithaca,  325. 

Jails.  See  Prisons. 

James  I,  69,  106,  208,  226,  248,  337. 

James  II,  339. 

Jamestown,  224. 

Jan  Kaas,  306. 

Janssen,  85. 

Japan,  18. 

Japanese,  37,  154. 

Japanese,  history  of,  17-26,  37. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  75,  82,  254,  308. 

Jennings,  319. 

Jepson,  carpenter,  161,  167,  338. 

Jesus,  72,  74, 118, 128, 178,  215, 332. 


[348] 


INDEX 


Jews,  144,  151- 

Johnson,  Frands,  140, 141, 144, 157, 

160,  336. 
Johnson,  George,  140,  157. 
Jones,  Captain,  204,  262. 
Jordan,  319. 
Juniper,  241,  242. 

Kampen,  143, 
Kent,  319. 
Kern,  319. 
Kings,  30, 64, 308. 
Kist,  N.C.,  311,  340. 
Klog  Steeg.  See  Bell  Alley. 
Knapp,  319. 
Knickerbocker,  151. 
Knights,  17. 

t-afayette,  108. 

Lambeth,  90. 

Lancashire,  307,  308. 

Land  tenure,  64,  no,  250,  257-61. 

Language,  2,  35,  162,  311. 

Latham,  William,  231. 

Latin,  8,  66,  108,  176. 

Latin  ideas,  77,  176. 

Latitude  and  longitude,  218. 

Laws  of  England,  21-35,  72,  95-98. 

Laws  of   Holland,  14,  81,  82,  85, 

149. 
Laws  of  the  Pilgrim  Republic,  291, 

294,  307,  308. 
Lee,  Robert,  189,  190. 
Left  and  right,  i,  152. 
Legends,  60. 
Leland,  John,  126. 
Letters,  205,  256,  285-87,  317. 
Leviticus,  148. 
Leyden,  lOi,  143,  162-64,  166-73, 

187-92,  224,  227,  236,  268,  279, 

337.  338. 
Leyden  jar,  171. 
Leyden  Street,  268,  339. 
Liberty  loans,  107,  in,  112. 
Lights,  19,  56. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  9,  82,  214,  307. 
Lincolnshire,  319. 
Linen,  238,  239. 


Livelihoods,  31,  234,  235. 

Log,  216,  217. 

London,  1-3,  40,  56,  63,  I13,  124, 

134,  138,  290,  319,  336. 
London  Company,  192,  193. 
Longfellow,  144,  198,  252,  273,  302. 
Lord's  Supper,  36,  80,  179. 
Low  Countries,  152. 
Lowell,  J.  R.,  99,  273. 
Lucy,  Charles,  340. 
Luggage,  2,  58. 
Luther,  77,  78,  335. 
Luzac,  Jean,  171. 
Lyford,  John,  316. 

Maas  River,  201, 203. 
Macaulay,  42. 
Magdalen  Isles,  138-41. 
Maiden's  love,  51-53- 
Maidservants,  224,  229,  234. 
Maize,  251,  263. 
Manhattan,  172,  240,  285. 
Margaret,  Queen  of  Scotland,  335.  1 
Marginal  references,  158. 
Markets,  59. 
Mark  Twain,  158. 
Marprelate  Tracts,  72,  89,  94,  lOI, 

314,  336. 
Marriage.  See  Weddings. 
Marriage  service,  61,  67. 
Martin  family,  230. 
Martin  Marprelate.  Set  Marprelate 

tracts. 
Martyrs,  21,  22,  72,  73,  88-100, 128, 

138,  139,  328,  335,  336. 
Mary,  49. 

Mary,  Queen,  71,  72,  82,  335. 
Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  114,  336. 
Maryland,  15. 

Mass,  the,  36,  178,  195,  203. 
Massachusetts,  108,  155,  256,  301, 

303. 
Massasoit,  254,  269,  270. 
Maurice,  165,  337. 
May,  Dorothy,  230,  243. 
Mayflower,  the,  63,  64,   140,  188, 

193,  204-27,  247,  248,  279,  337, 

338,  339.  340. 


[  349  1 


INDEX 


Mayflower  Company,  207-10,  220- 

35,  240,  243,  254,  337- 
Mayflower  Descendants,  331,  340. 
Meade,  190. 
Meat,  281. 
Medicine,  275,  276. 
Mediaeval  ideas,  29,  35,  66,  67,  68. 
Meeting  houses,  73,  268,  338,  339. 
Memorials,  86,  87,   172,   173,  207, 

234.  235.  236,  267,  273,  340,  341. 
Merr>-mount,  295-97. 
Methodists,  68. 
Meuse,  202. 

Middleburg,  76-87, 89, 143, 336, 341. 
Middle  States,  10,  13,  15,  105,  150, 

167,  172. 
Midsummer  Eve,  52,  53. 
Military,  American,  63,   189,   190, 

294. 
Military,  Dutch,  191,  195. 
Military,  English,  45,  261,  298. 
Militar>',  Pilgrim,  261-73,  317. 
Milton,  John,  322. 
Minter,  Desire,  227,  229,  319. 
Minuit,  Peter,  259,  285. 
Money,  13,  289. 
Monks,  18,  67. 
Monk's  Mill,  125. 
Montgomerys,  167. 
Monuments,  340. 
Moravians,  244. 
More,  Ellen,  228,  229. 
More,  Richard,  232. 
Morton,  Thomas,  294-97. 
Motherhood,  184,  185. 
Motley,  J.  L.,  189,  297. 
Mugwort,  60. 
Mullens,  Priscilla,  144, 228,  230, 232, 

302. 
Mullens  family,  228,  230,  232,  319. 
Museum,  11,  170,  196,  197. 
Music,  60,  144. 
Muslin,  238. 

Naarden,  143. 

Name  of  Mayflower,  217,  233,  247. 

Names  of  Christians,  313. 

Names  of  persons,  32,  109,  no,  319. 


Names  of  places,  13,  156,  252. 

Napkins,  55. 

National  Churches,  74. 

Navigation,  215-221. 

New  Amsterdam,  11. 

New  Bedford,  282. 

New  England,  249,  310,  320,  327. 

New  England   Confederation,   272, 

338. 
New  France,  295. 
New  Nethedand,  43,  155,  156,  191, 

202,  209,  259,  286,  337,  338. 
Newspapers,  14. 
New  Testament,  33,  72,  78, 158, 179, 

261,  330. 
New  York,  217,  256,  257. 
New  York  Histoo',  256,  257. 
Non-Conformists,  65,  73. 
Non-English  elements,  313-20. 
Nordenskjold,  274. 
Norfolk,  319. 
Norwich,  82,  128. 
Nottinghamshire,  319. 
Numbers,  187. 

Occupations,  234. 

Ocean,  27,  28,  212-20. 

Oceanus,  228. 

Old  Colony  Pilgrim  Society,  339. 

Old  Glory,  149. 

Oldham,  John,  317. 

Old  Testament,  151,  178,  298,  330. 

Oligarchy,  18-20. 

Orient,  the,  151. 

Orientals,  26,  33,  151,  153. 

Oxford,  93,  94. 

Packard,  319. 

Pageantry,  49. 

Paintings,  12, 149,  238, 253, 339, 340. 

Palfrey,  J.  G.,  318. 

Paper,  55. 

Parliament,  5,  92,  339. 

Paul,  Saint,  73,  120. 

Peace  policy,  256. 

Peacock's  Index,  170. 

Pennsylvania,  257. 

Penn,  William,  75,  82,  259,  260. 


[    350    ] 


INDEX 


Penobscot,  271. 

Penry,  John,  89,  93-99.  3i4,  336. 

People,  the,  18,  91,  92,  96. 

Peregrine  White,  228,  232. 

Persecutions,  124,  138-41. 

Pershing,  General,  2,  108. 

Pestilence,  275. 

Pesyn  Hof,  167,  338. 

Pets,  197. 

Pews,  290. 

Piet  Heyn,  200. 

Philadelphia,  10. 

Philip  II  of  Spain,  95,  96,  189. 

Pictures,   103,   105,   175,   180,  202, 

290. 
Pigs,  302. 
Pilgrimages,  24. 
Pilgrim  Father  country,  lor,  115, 

125,  128. 
Pilgrim  Fathers,  12,  63,  79,  84,  89, 

97,  124,  133,  140,  147,  150,  235, 

339- 
Pilgrim  Hall,  339. 
Pilgrim  movement,  134,  282,  324. 
Pilgrim  Press,  106,  337. 
Pilgrim  Republic,  226,  273,  284-300, 

337- 
Pilgrim  ships,  166. 
Pilgrims,  38,  62,  74,  188,  228,  283, 

298-308,  310-16,  318,  321,  323, 

326-32,  339,  340. 
Pilgrims,  first  public  use  of  name, 

7i>  89- 
Pilgrims'  Quay,  201. 
Pillows,  239. 
Pilots,  192,  219-21. 
Pins,  57,  106. 
Pitt,  William,  209,  308. 
Plants,  52,  53. 
Plato,  305. 
Plockhoy,  286. 
Plymouth    in    America,   249,    303, 

339- 
Plymouth  in  England,  206-09,  337> 

340,341- 
Plymouth,  name,  249. 
Plymouth  Rock,  229,  339. 
Polders,  143. 


Political  status,  153. 

Pollock  Rip,  219. 

Pope,  the,  29,  68,  257. 

Population,  8. 

Portraits,  174,  175. 

Post,  the,  7,  loi. 

Potwin,  319. 

Poujol,  D.  F.,  142. 

Poverty,  152. 

Prayer-book,  61,  65,  335. 

Prayers,  21,  95,  96,  202. 

Preaching,  177. 

Primula  Mistassinica,  324. 

Prince  Edward's  Island,  138. 

Printing  in  England,  26,  102. 
Printing  in  the  Netherlands,  82,  90, 

loi,  102,  103,  106,  153,  337. 
Priscilla.  See  Mullens,  Priscilla. 
Prisoners,  20,  90,  91,  94,  139. 
Prisons,  the,  90,  95,  130,  131,  138, 

139,  261. 
Pronunciation,  3,  162,  163. 
Provincetown,  235,  242,  243,  340. 
Prower,  319. 
Psalms,  144. 
Public  schools,  21,  105. 
Pulpit,  177, 178. 
Punishments,  17,  21,  291,  338. 
Puritan  dress,  238,  240. 
Puritan  family,  298,  299. 
Puritan  poUtics,  338. 
Puritan  refugees,  335. 
Puritans,    120,    175,   298-309,   330, 

338. 
Puritans  in  America,  84,  153,   316, 

318,  338. 
Puritans  in  England,  42,  47,  67, 131, 
178,  323,  339- 

Quakers,  68. 

Rabbits,  46,  47,  127. 
Railways,  2. 

Rainea,  138,  140,  141,  337. 
Rattlesnake  skin,  256. 
Records,  12,  161. 

Reformed  churches,   146,  169,  178, 
201,  202,  259,  337- 


[351] 


INDEX 


Reformers,  25,  26,  121,  122. 
Refugees,  31,  32,  69,  143,  147,  335, 

336,  337- 
Relics,  II,  131,  195,  214. 
Religion,  8,  25,  37,  65,  81,  84,  133, 

177.  178,  182,  191,  327-29.  330, 

332. 
Rembrandt,  154,  165,  166,  337. 
Republic,  American,  286,  311,  312. 
Republic,  Dutch,  149,  184,  286,  337. 
Republic,  Pilgrim,  187,  284-97. 
Republic,  Swiss,  79. 
Reynolds,  Captain,  202,  205,  206. 
Rhode  Island,  292. 
Rigdale  family,  229,  231. 
Ritual,  176,  177,  314. 
Roads,  1,  7. 
Robinson,  John,  132,  157,  161,  172, 

173,  174-82,  189,  202,  205,  256, 

261,  302,  312,  313,  315,  318,  330, 

336,  337,  340. 
Rock,  Plymouth,  229. 
Rogers  family,  233,  319. 
Rome,  29,  335. 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  9,  11,  236. 
Rotterdam,  107,  202. 
Rule  of  the  road,  i,  152. 

Sabbath,  the,  237, 267, 289, 290, 297, 

298. 
Sacraments,  178. 
Saint  Eustatius,  12. 
Saint  George,  47-50. 
Saint  Peter's  Church,  161,  171,  173. 
Salem,  Mass.,  153,  230,  239. 
Salvation,  201. 
Samson,  Henry,  233. 
Sandys,  Edwin,  192. 
Santa  Claas,  11,  12, 
Sargent,  Henry,  339. 
Saturday  Night,  298,  299. 
Scaffolds,  199. 
Schaeffer,  de  Hoop,  311. 
Schenectady,  325. 
Schnapps,  151. 
Schools,  105,  i6i,  304. 
Schwartze,  340. 
Scotch  Brigade,  107,  171. 

[  35 


Scotch  church,  86,  168. 

Scotland,  94. 

Scots  at  Leyden,  168-71,  313. 

Scottish  church,  86,  159,  168,  169. 

Scottish  people,  320. 

Scout,  84,  85. 

Scriptures  quoted,  30,  66,  88,  100, 
105,  120,  123,  127,  178,  179,  194, 
201,  236,  258,  275,  300,  327,  329. 

Scrooby,  46,  47,  115,  116,  124-35, 
148,157.161-69,311,337. 

Scrooby  people,  275,  279,  337. 

Scurvy,  274. 

Sea,  191,  273, 

Sea  bottom,  213.  j 

Sea  food,  213. 

Seals,  201,  217,  252. 

Second  generation,  290. 

Separatist  hterature,  76. 

Separatists,  67,  74,  76,  89,  133,  322, 

337- 
Sermon,  65. 
Seward,  167. 

Shakespeare,  41,  52,  113,  336.  < 
Shakespeare  quoted,  41,  52,  55. 
Shallop,  263-67. 
Sheep,  17,  49,  117. 
Shell  money.  See  Wampum. 
Sheriffs,  129,  130. 
Ships,  140,  166,  212,  315.      ' 
Ships  of  1620,  140,  212,  216. 
Shoemaker,  235. 
Shoes,  56,  57,  150,  209. 
Shriekers'  Tower,  154. 
Sickness,  275-78. 
Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  108. 
Siena,  235,  236. 
Signatures,  223. 
Slave  trade,  253,  254,  285,  286. 
Smith,  John,  205,  249,  281. 
Snow,  280,  290. 
Socialism,  Christian,  323. 
Socialists,  286. 
Soldiers,  261,  266,  268,  294. 
Soule,  319. 
Southampton,    193,  204,   205,   211, 

337.341- 
Spain,  95,  147,  189,  208,  257,  287. 

2] 


INDEX 


Spaniards,  2,  267. 

Speedwell,    166,   194,   199,   202-04, 

205-09,  337. 
Spelling,  161. 
Spinning,  51. 
Spinning  wheels,  62,  335. 
Spinster,  51. 

Spirit  of  the  Pilgrims,  152,  298-300. 
Spoons,  58. 
Sports,  39-49- 
Squanto,  254. 
Standish,  Miles,  144,  175,  228,  261- 

73,  314,  317,  318,  338. 
Standish,  Rose,  228,  230. 
Starch,  236,  243. 
Stars  and  Stripes,  150. 
State  Church  idea,  76-78. 
State  House,  11,  151,  340. 
States  General,  286. 
Statues,  307,  340. 
Stevens  family,  230. 
Stories,  60,  61,  177. 
Streets,  7,  268,  339. 
Stripes,  105,  303. 
Stuart  kings,  307.  ^ 

Students,  British,  41,  170. 
Studley,  Daniel,  140. 
Sugar,  252. 

Superstitions,  22,  23,  60.    J 
Sutton,  125. 
Swalue,  311. 
Swan,  the  ship,  338. 
Smss  Family  Robinson,  30. 
Switzerland,  78,  79,  325. 
Swords,  108, 129,  130, 146,  210,  266, 

272. 
Symbols,  25,  65, 181,  256. 
Synod  of  Dort,  191,  337- 

Tablets,  86,  87,  104,  147,  IS9.  172, 

173.  18s,  207,302,340. 
Taft,  President,  236. 
Talismans,  52. 
Tea,  I. 

Temple  Bar,  72. 
Tercentenary,  159,  341. 
Thacker,  Elias,  89. 
Theaters,  56, 113. 


Theology,  85,  90,  312. 

Tillie  family,  228,  229,  230, 231, 233, 

319- 
Timmerman,  319. 
Tin  hats,  286,  287. 
Tinker  family,  228,  229,  231,  233. 
Titles,  286,  287. 
Tobacco,  61,  252,  288. 
Toleration,  104,  146,  291. 
Toryism,  92. 
Town  meeting,  317. 
Trade  and  occupations,  234,  235. 
Translations,  33-35. 65, 66, 103, 335. 
Traps,  130. 
Treaties,  257. 
Trevore,  319. 
Truce,  147.  iSO,  337- 
Trumpeters,  268,  269. 
Tudor  England,  18-20,  30,  136-40, 

180. 
Tudors,  9,  32,  54,  68,  102,  180,  307, 

335- 
Turks,  33,  146. 
Turner  family,  233. 
Twain,  Mark,  258. 
Twelve  Years'  Truce,  147,  150, 194. 
Twins,  145. 
Tyndale,  103,  335. 

Undesirables,  207,  208. 

Union  and  secession,  165, 189-91. 

Union  church,  Leyden,  313. 

Union  Jack,  148. 

Union  of  states,  149,  190. 

United  States  of  America,  80,  137, 

146,  164,  172,  258. 
United  States  of  the  Netherlands, 

80,  149,  165,  189-91. 
Universities  in  England,  21,  90,  lOl, 

170. 
Universities  in  Holland,  12,  170. 
University,  304. 
Usher,  Roland,  188,  302. 
Utrecht,  104,  170. 

Van  Buren,  Martin,  11. 
Van  Curler,  Arendt,  256. 
Vegetables,  53, 106, 107,  275. 


[  353  ] 


INDEX 


Veer,  86. 

Virginia,  192, 193,  221, 224,  247, 285, 

294. 
V'isitors  in  Plymouth,  254,  269,  285, 

290. 
Voltaire,  260. 
Votes,  158. 

Wales,  6,  75,  93,  167,  171,  259,  313. 

Walker,  319. 

Walloons  in  America,  105,  259,  285, 

313. 
Walloons  in  Amsterdam,  142,  143. 
Walloons  in  England,  319,  336. 
Walloons  in  Holland,  105,  142,  143, 

167,  313,  336. 
Walloons  in  Leyden,  167,  171,  336. 
Wall-paper,  55,  59. 
Wampum,  252,  256,  259,  289,  338. 
Ward,  J.  Q.  A.,  340. 
Washday,  238-43. 
Washington,  D.C.,  340. 
Washington,  George,  9,  12,  38,  112, 

115,  172,307. 
Watch  Tower,  338. 
Watts,  Dr.,  176. 
Webster,  Daniel,  339. 
Weddings,  4,  51,  67,  143,  302,  338. 
Weir,  Robert  W.,  238,  340. 
Welsh,  32,  75,  93, 167,  i68,  171,  313- 
Welsh  names,  32. 
Wesley,  John,  254,  286. 
West  India  Company  (Dutch),  191, 

204,  259. 
West  Indies,  232,  285. 
Weston,  204. 
Whales,  265,  282. 
Whigs,  170,  307,  308. 
White,  A.  D.,  85. 
White,  Edwin,  339. 


White  family,  228,  229,  232,  233, 

234- 
Whittier,  68,  158. 
Widows,  184,  234. 
Wilhelmina,  Queen,  147. 
William  III,  168,  339. 
William  the  Silent,  80,  no,  I12, 148, 

336. 
Williams,  Roger,  75,  93,  144,  259, 

291,  292. 
Wilson,  Woodrow,  9. 
Windmills,  150. 
Windows,  54. 
Winslow,    Edward,    174,    181,   229, 

316,  318,  338. 
Winslow  family,  228. 
Winston-Salem,  N.C.,  244. 
Winthrop,  Governor,  293. 
Wituwamut,  271. 
Wollaston,  294-97. 
Wolsey,  Archbishop,  335. 
Women,  Dutch,  155,  156. 
Women,   Pilgrim,  61,   132,   183-85, 

188,  227-31,  234,  276-78,  280. 
Wool,  31. 
Woolsack,  31. 
Worship,  67,  177. 
Writing,  184,  223. 
Wycliffe,  335. 

Yankees,  1-3,  235,  305,  306. 

Yanks,  306. 

Yarmouth,  193. 

Yeomen,  116. 

York,  Archbishop  of,  125. 

Yorkshire,  319. 

Zeist,  244. 
Zutphen,  108. 
Zwinglius,  70,  79,  335. 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .   S    .  A 


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